


On Hallowed Ground

by WalkerLister



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, It's spooky time, Mystery, Supernatural Elements, what has happened to the fam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkerLister/pseuds/WalkerLister
Summary: Everyone knows about the mansion on the outskirts of Sheffield, but no one ever goes near it, and no one knows what lurks inside. Yaz has heard tales of ghost hunters who have run in fear from the place before they even stepped through the front door. She drives past it on shifts sometimes, evaluating it, but never going near it.Until one day, longing for more than just the mundanity of Sheffield, she does.Inside, Yaz meets a mysterious blonde woman who she cannot helped but feel pulled to, as if by... fate.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 139
Kudos: 118





	1. The Mansion

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I wrote this story in 6 days after having an idea for a Halloween story- I'm quite pleased and I hope you will enjoy! I will post the next chapter on Saturday and then every Wednesday and Saturday from then on.
> 
> TW: minor character injury

No one ever goes near the mansion, and no one ever talks about why, although Yaz knows there are many tales afoot, circling through the city in secretive spirit.

The reason seems wrapped in mystery and myth, hearsay whispered in the corner of rooms, written about anonymously online behind the cover of a screen. No one seems to know when the mansion was built, and no one seems to know exactly what and who resides in it now; the place is cocooned in its own enigma, and everyone is too afraid to unwrap it to crack the code within.

Her dad says it’s a conspiracy to generate the economy by pulling in ghost hunters, but Yaz has heard tales of people who venture there and run away in fear before they ever get anywhere near the front door. Ryan says that there is a madwoman inside, like Rochester’s wife in ‘Jane Eyre’, that he has watched YouTube videos proving her existence. His grandad, Graham, simply shakes his head and turns to the football scores, not one for ghost stories (‘ _only if the ghosts were pleasant folk, not if they’re going to be all wailing and screaming. If a ghost gets me a sandwich, then I’ll maybe consider recognising their existence’_ ). Yaz cannot remember why exactly she knows them so well, assumes it must be because she and Ryan went to school together, but every week without fail she goes around for dinner and they sit and discuss the mysteries surrounding the mansion, among other things.

Yaz passes it sometimes when she is on duty, patrolling the streets of Sheffield in her car, lazily slaloming through streets until she feels something in her pull her towards that mansion, a want she cannot explain, and she veers off her usual route towards where it is placed, on the outside of the city, surrounded by trees and desolate moors, pulling up on the road outside and simply sitting there and evaluating it.

If one were to say, ‘haunted mansion’, Yaz would describe creaking wood and tall towers near-swaying in the breeze, a dark wooden frame with rotting windows. The mansion, however, is nothing like that. And Yaz thinks that is worse than if it were, for it looks as if someone has taken Regency gentility and twisted it into something sinister, a grin turned malicious, a hand reached out with clawing fingernails. Ivy vines trails across its frontage, crawling across white sash windows and red brick battered by the strong northern winds. A rusted iron gate elaborately curves above Yaz’s vision as she peers up at the house from the end of its long drive, in sight but out of reach, locked behind tarnished metal.

Yaz surveys it, but she does not go near it.

Until one day, she does.

Something in her feels wrong, feels…. Frustrated. She is tired that no one talks about the mansion, that nothing changes, that she gets up every day and goes to work and then comes home to bed and then repeat, repeat, repeat. She wants more, feels a longing in herself for adventure, and the mansion answers that call and she gravitates towards it until she can no longer resist the pull. She might never return, but Yaz is less affected by that thought than perhaps she should be. She does not dwell on it.

And so, evening coming in thick and fast in the autumn air, Yaz takes herself over to the house, driving a now familiar route, and her car pulls up in the near darkness, eyeing the mansion up as it sits in the twilight gloom. Her engine dies and the lights go out, and the mansion becomes a shadow, a shape, nothing real, nothing to be feared. There are no lights on, that Yaz can see, and Yaz thinks perhaps it is simply deserted. It is just a house. Only a house.

Yaz’s police training means she makes quick work of surmounting the rusted gate, and she grunts as she hits the ground on the other side, making sure to double check she has both her phone and the small pocket torch she had stashed in her jacket pocket as she begins to trudge up the long winding drive towards the house. She hears the crowing of crows as she walks, the crunching of gravel under her feet, her heart pounding in her chest, slightly scared, despite her best efforts not to be. Or perhaps it is simply excitement at something new.

Nothing disturbs her until she gets within one hundred feet of the mansion, and then suddenly cold dread trickles down her spine, settling in her lungs, picking up her breathing. Yaz straightens her back and tries to push it away, but it is stubborn, and she fights the panic by trying not to panic, but it is no good, and before she even knows it her heart is hammering faster and faster. Her feet pick up the pace to compensate.

Suddenly, past crying crows and anxious footsteps, the sound of dogs barking reaches Yaz’s ears, and she turns to her left to see a pack of rabid, angry dogs charging right her way. Eyes widening, Yaz does not think, she just runs.

She runs across the lawn in front of the mansion, doing her best to evaluate how to get up and out of the way of snapping teeth in baying jaws, and she spots a trellis trailing up one wall leading to a small roof which cuts off at the first floor. That is her best chance.

The dogs growl and moan and mutter, and strangely their cries seem to resonate Yaz’s fears, insecurities, things she has thought about herself for years but which she fights against every day, has been fighting against since a fateful day by a road leading her towards peace, towards escape. She lets out a small cry, confused by how a wolf can _speak,_ but she does not dwell on it for too long because soon she is approaching that trellis and throwing herself upon it, thorns and splintered wood ripping at her fingers and palms. She pushes on, clambering upwards, feeling the dogs nip at her ankles, until finally she reaches the roof, fingers scrambling for grip on the tiles until she feels stable and secure, perched upon them, looking down at the dogs jumping up, claws glinting in the low-light. Yaz stays there, chest heaving, until the dogs give up and, whining, pad away from their prey, disappearing.

Yaz swears under her breath, letting the cold wind soothe her sweaty brow. She wonders which route to take next. Should she descend once more and try for the front door, or will the dogs leap at her again? Or should she turn back? Back to her car, back to normality, back to mundanity? No, no, for, whilst talking dogs reciting to you your worst fears about yourself is disturbing, it is also exciting.

Yaz keeps going.

She looks around her, leaning forward to see if she can peer into any of the windows on the first floor of the mansion, but they are all dark within. When she twists the other way, however, to behind her and where the mansion stretches out, her eye is caught by a glint of light through a cracked-open window.

Someone is in there.

Yaz starts edging her way across the roof, fingers gripping tight to the tiles. Perhaps she was foolish to think it would be easy enough for her to edge her way across the roof and to the window without anything getting in her way when sudden savage dogs had just descended upon her, seemingly from nowhere, but no sooner has she begun her shaky journey than a sudden flapping begins to resonate in her ears, a multitude of wings, and Yaz winces and instinctively covers her face with her hands as the cawing crows descend on her.

The flapping becomes overwhelming, a horrid sound in Yaz’s ears which sends terror straight to her core, and she shuffles slowly into a hunched position, head covered as the crows nip at her hands and her arms, ripping her jacket, claws scratching her skin. Their attack does not relent, they continue seemingly forever and Yaz lets out a cry, anger and frustration riding on her wave of adrenaline and she raises herself upwards, batting them away with her arms, hitting solid bodies and warning them off.

Yaz grunts and screams as she puts all her might into fighting against the birds, and finally, _finally,_ more finally than the dogs had receded, the crows suddenly flit away, their calls echoing throughout the air in farewell. Yaz staggers and stumbles as her attackers depart, and before she can stop herself, she is falling.

Luckily, Yaz had been standing on the side of the roof nearest to the wall, so when she falls, she does not plummet to the ground, but instead she hits the apex of the roof, where it steeples. She reconsiders whether that was fortunate or not, however, when she catches her forehead on the tiles, and her vision blurs and she looses all sense of reality for a moment.

She blinks, the sharp pain in her head centring on a point near her temple, and Yaz groans, pushing herself up on shaky arms as her head swims, reality distorting. She needs to get off this roof.

She pushes herself back, trying not to move her head too much, and reaches blindly for the wall. Her cracked fingernails touch crinkly brick, and Yaz keeps that hand there as the centre of her universe until she is turned towards the wall, nausea rising in her throat.

The ajar window sits just above her, and Yaz fights and fights against the disorientation as it wavers in her vision in front of her. Her fingers reach out once and miss it, perception altered, but on their third attempt crease under the window frame, and with fading strength she nudges it upwards, wood groaning slightly, until there is a gap wide enough for her to fit through.

Her limbs do not feel like her own as she begins to scramble through the window, her strength draining from her, practically shoving her body in when she gets the momentum to slide through, hitting wooden floorboards on the other side. She groans, vision dotting, blackness swirling, but Yaz stays conscious just enough to hear a voice cry above her, to glance up and spot pale skin and blonde hair before her consciousness leaves her and she falls limp, defeated. 

* * *

When Yaz wakes, there is something pressing against her brow, poking it slightly, and she lets out a groan involuntarily at the pain that causes. There is a muttered apology from a voice she does not recognise, and the thing draws back. Yaz feels hot in its absence, and she realises now it was a damp cloth, tending to her wound, because she had been running and then climbing and then she had fallen and hit her head whilst she was-

Oh.

Whilst she was trying to get into the mansion.

Yaz has a feeling she has made it inside, and that the person muttering apologies and soothing her brow might be the mad woman.

Maybe Ryan was right all along.

Her eyes blink open, bleary, reality slipping and sliding in front of her until with a few blinks to clear her vision Yaz can make out an intricately plastered white ceiling above her, and to her right, hovering anxiously at the edges of her vision, a blonde figure with brow creased, eyes coloured in autumnal colours wide and wary. She looks at Yaz with wonder and fear in equal measure, and in her hand is clasped a damp white cloth.

“Oh.” She says, voice soft. “Hello.”


	2. Just as Extraordinary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this a day early because this week has been extremely hard and I thought it would be nice! Thank you so much for the response to the first chapter, it was so much more than I was expecting and so thank you so much! I hope you enjoy this chapter!! 
> 
> The mystery continues...

_Her eyes blink open, bleary, reality slipping and sliding in front of her until with a few blinks to clear her vision Yaz can make out an intricately plastered white ceiling above her, and to her right, hovering anxiously at the edges of her vision, a blonde figure with brow creased, eyes coloured in autumnal colours wide and wary. She looks at Yaz with wonder and fear in equal measure, and in her hand is clasped a damp white cloth._

_“Oh.” She says, voice soft. “Hello.”_

Yaz swallows, trying to find her voice. “Hello.”

The woman lets out a long, shaky breath at that, as if relieved at Yaz’s reply. Her hand disappears from Yaz’s vision. “I were trying to help you. I’ve read that you should put a cold compress on a wound, so….”

“Thank you.” Yaz says, automatically. The woman is a blur of pale skin and she blinks a few times to try and clear her vision.

“What- er- what happened?”

“Ahh, well, you sort of began shoving your way through my window, and then when you had toppled in, you sort of erm… passed out.” The woman says with a wince. “I’m sorry, I would have moved you to the bed, but I didn’t think I’d manage. But I put a pillow behind your head! It’s very nice, filled with some special feathers from a bird… oh, what’s it called? A goose! Yes, that’s it! It’s a goose-feather pillow!”

Yaz can feel that softness against her head, much nicer than the cold floor which sits under her body. “No, no, it’s fine, thank you….”

She very carefully levers herself upright, and the woman pulls back, padding to a few feet away, looking warily, eyes skating over Yaz as if trying to decide whether or not she is a threat. That seems fair, seeing as Yaz had come toppling through her window. Yaz’s head winces for a bit, but it clears after a moment, nowhere near as bad as it was before.

“How long was it out?” Yaz asks the woman.

The woman’s face scrunches up and she looks behind her to check the clock on the mantlepiece. The incredibly delicate and fancy clock, Yaz realises, sat upon a grand mantlepiece with crackling fire in the hearth. In fact, as Yaz looks around, she notices the entire room is resplendent, but trapped in, she would guess, the Regency period, all antique looking interiors. Bookshelves line the wall on either side of the fireplace, stuffed with volumes of books. A small door is inlaid in the wall next to one of the bookcases, leading Yaz does not know where, but there is another one on the wall on the other side of the room she assumes must lead to a hallway. The room is large, and as Yaz tentatively peers around her she can make out the corner of a chaise longue and a bed, and looking to her other side there is a telescope placed in front of another window from the one she had climbed through, star charts scattered all over the floor. Candelabras glow with small but fiery passion, filling the room with warm light.

“Err, ‘bout ten minutes.” The woman replies, turning back to Yaz, eyes skating over her form. Her hands are twisting the cloth this way and that in front of her. She is wearing, Yaz realises, a soft cotton nightdress which trails down to her ankles but leaves her pale arms bare. Her blonde hair is loose, brushing her shoulders. She looks strangely out of place in this room but also strangely out of time with the world Yaz has come from. She is strange, a contradiction, and yet Yaz cannot deny she is fascinated, drawn in by pale skin and curious eyes. Wary eyes, they are, too, and Yaz wonders who this woman is, why she is here, in the infamous haunted mansion.

She decides to confront the fear in the woman’s eyes first. “I’m not dangerous, I promise.” Yaz says, wincing as her head swims a little. She tentatively places her fingertips to the wound, feeling the bump. She hisses.

“Here.” The woman says, and she darts forward to hand Yaz the cloth before darting back just as quickly.

“Thank you.” Yaz mutters as she tentatively places the compress to her wound. It is cooling, and soothing, and she immediately finds herself relaxing. She shoots the woman a smile. “And I meant it. I’m not dangerous. Although, I get why you might think that, seeing as I came in through the window.”

The woman’s lips quirk up ever so slightly, but she still looks uncertain. “Why did you come here?”

Yaz shrugs and answers honestly. “I were curious.”

“What did you think you would find?” The woman asks, head titling to the side.

Yaz shrugs again, pulling a face and immediately regretting it as it strains at her head wound. “Not sure. People say all sorts ‘bout this place, but I’m not sure any of it is true.”

Yaz has not forgotten the rabid dogs or the cackling crows, but the inside is a complete contradiction to what one might expect from the outside. So far, anyway. There is something about this woman that sets Yaz at ease. She cannot understand it, but something sits deep inside her and feels… right. Warm. But still, Yaz is cautious, and knows that instinct cannot be everything, and who knows who this woman might be?

The woman’s eyes trails over her, evaluating, still uncertain, but Yaz glimpses her own little glimmer of curiosity. Something is peeking through. “What do the people say?”

Yaz winces, and licks her lips before saying, “That a madwoman lives here.”

“A _madwoman?_ ” The woman asks, tone tight and taut, her face drooping downwards, hurt. Yaz cringes. She has put her foot in it. She blames the head wound.

“Not that I’m saying that’s what you are.” She reassures quickly, one hand reaching out in supplication. “I’m just saying…. Well, people are wrong.”

The other woman looks at her, brow furrowed, obviously thinking hard. Yaz quickly goes to supplicate more. Yaz wants to put her at ease, at ill ease with the upset on the woman’s face; she seems harmless, but Yaz’s caution is still strong. “It’s because they see a big house on the hill and think that there must be something sinister there.” Yaz adds. “Appearances aren’t everything.”

“But you didn’t see that?” The woman asks, brow creased, still looking unsure.

Yaz shrugs, trying to appear casual. “Like I said, I was curious. Beats fear any day.”

Her lips quirk up that, and Yaz sees her shoulders relax and relaxes herself, confident she has reassured this woman that Yaz is not going to harm her, is not going to point and accuse her of being mad.

“I’m Yaz, by the way.” Yaz introduces herself, using her nickname; her full name seems strangely formal.

The woman stares at her for a moment, surprised, before she blinks, shaking herself. “I’m T.”

Yaz frowns. “T?”

“Hmm.” The woman, T, apparently, says absently.

“Is that short for anything?” Yaz asks her, confused.

“You have _three_ letters?” T says with genuine wonder, cutting across Yaz. Her brain must then catch up with Yaz’s question, for she frowns and says, “No, it’s just T. One letter for one person.”

Yaz does not know how to reply to that, shocked, confused, head hurting. She licks her lips, swallowing her questions, and instead says, “Nice to meet you, T. And thank you, again, for helping me out.”

T nods, eyes skating over Yaz, still, with wonder, replacing her wariness. It is an improvement, but there is something hungry in that wonder which makes Yaz shiver. Not because the other woman seems to her a predator, not in the same way that the dogs and the crows were, but that her hunger speaks of a loneliness. Yaz wonders how many visitors she might get, here on the hill in her lonely house. Does anyone else live here? All the windows were dark, it does not seem that way….

T takes a few steps forward, settling down on the edge of the chaise longue. It is heaped with piles of books, and Yaz squints to read the covers. They are the classics of Shelley, Byron and the Brontë’s. Yaz can see _Jane Eyre,_ and her stomach twists to think of the madwoman in the attic. Yaz also spots notebooks, piles of notebooks and pens scattered about, loose pages having jumped ship to the floor. Fountain pens. Everything in here is frozen in time, even the books are old hardback editions. Yaz is not sure what to make of it, what to make of all of this, but something does sit within her, something that feels…. Right. Natural.

“Are you from outside?” T asks, leaning forwards slightly.

Yaz blinks. “Yeah. That’s why I came through the window.”

T’s eyes widen and then she catches herself and she nods, looking down at her lap. “Right, yes, of course.”

 _What did she mean by ‘the outside’?_ Yaz wonders.

“I’ve never met anyone from the outside.” T admits a moment later, eyes wandering up to Yaz’s face, taking her in, as if she cannot quite believe she is there.

Yaz frowns. “You’ve never met anyone?”

T shakes her head. “No.”

“From the outside? You’ve never…. You’ve never been outside?” Yaz reiterates, shock settling in cold, as cold as the compress against her head. Something about T seems natural but something about these circumstances seems _unnatural_ to Yaz as she feels a dawning sense of horror.

T shakes her head again, and she looks fearful at the mere thought of going ‘outside’. “No.”

Yaz struggles to find her next question for moment. “What? Never outside this mansion? These grounds?”

“No, never _outside._ ” T corrects her, and points outside the window. “Never really outside this room, if I’m honest. This is my place, my….. _space._ ”

“How long have you been here?”

T considers this, face scrunching up in thought. “As long as I can remember.”

Yaz blanches, too taken aback and still smarting from her wound to hide her shock. “But, w-…. _Why?_ ” Is the woman sick? She does not look sick, just… pasty, as one would be if they have _never been outside._

T blinks, and answers, as if it was obvious. “Because the outside is dangerous.”

The answer is strangely childish, simplistic, as if it is the first belief T ever had, innate, built into her brain. Dread crawls down Yaz’s spine. “Who told you that?”

T blinks again, and her eyes glance towards the door. “My minders.”

“ _Minders?_ ” Yaz asks. The woman is being very forthcoming about all this, and Yaz wonders if it is because she suddenly has someone to talk to, can hardly seem to believe, like Yaz can, that this is happening.

T’s hand runs up and down her arm in a soothing manner, raising the light hairs on her skin. “They- they look after me. _Mind me,_ I ‘spose you could say.”

Yaz’s lips quirk up at that. Underneath the fear, Yaz can see someone quite bubbly and charismatic of character with a sense of humour. Yaz nods, trying not to let her shock show, her surprise, not wanting to make the woman feel odd, not when she has taken care of Yaz and when there is a vulnerability to her that Yaz cannot help but lean into, wanting to reassure her. Yaz’s head is still reeling, spinning slightly, although whether that was the bump or not, she cannot be sure. This all seems so… surreal. She is in the Mansion, talking with a woman who seems to be trapped here, in some sort of sumptuous prison, who has never been outside, and yet far from angry or dangerous she seems curious and now the wariness has receded and she has relaxed into Yaz’s presence has been staring at her with wonder. Yaz is sure her face must be the same, wonder mixed with pity mixed with curiosity mixed with… something she cannot explain. It is like she knows this woman’s face, but cannot place it, a familiar tune yet she does not know the melody. Yaz is transfixed.

“I’m not- I’m not mad.” T says, any trace of humour gone, mouth caught in a grimace. “Not like they say, not like- not like you’d think.” Her gaze travels downwards, to the chaise longue, and Yaz follows it, stomach twisting again at the sight of _Jane Eyre._

“I didn’t think you were.” Yaz replies.

“I’m not dangerous. Not- I’m not going to hurt you.” T says, and her tone is laced with something, an undercurrent running through her words. A fear. Uncertainty. She wants Yaz to believe her, desperate for her to believe her.

“Right.” Yaz says, nodding, assuring the woman. She sees T relax at her agreement, although she still looks uncomfortable. To try and understand better the strange world Yaz had literally dragged into, she says, “I love your room.”

T instantly brightens. “Me too!” She looks at Yaz, eyes brighter and lighter. “Would you like to see it properly? If you’re- I mean if you don’t feel too…”

“I feel okay.” Yaz assures her, pulling the cold compress away from her head. It still feels a little fuzzy, and her limbs ache something wicked, sharp scratches from the tiles and the crows smarting, but it is a dull pain she can ignore, and she very slowly gets to her feet. Her vision swims for a moment but clears quickly and taking a few deep breaths Yaz feels much better.

She allows T to show her around the room, which in itself does not take much time, but it is fascinating to Yaz. A four poster takes prominence, the chaise longue seated at the end of the bed, piled with bedding and cushions and pillows. Thick curtains hang around it, pulled back, but Yaz imagines it is incredibly cosy when they are pulled closed tight. On the other side of the room is the fireplace and the bookcases, and T waves Yaz past the second door, explaining it is the bathroom, but that is not exciting at all.

Yaz is incredibly curious about the paintings on the walls. They are all landscapes, oil paintings and watercolours, framed in intricate golden frames, depicting rolling fields, mountain-scapes, sea views; one is of the Peak District, that Yaz recognises, another of a Cornish village, sun captured as it sets, hitting the water, another of a small cabin in a woodland. The only outside T knows, well, except from what she can see from her windows, which is where she leads Yaz next. Yaz can barely get her head around it.

“I like to watch the stars.” T says, peering up at the sky with affection. The sun is fully set, the stars shining, primped and preened in the sky, reflected in T’s adoring eyes. Yaz feels her lips quirk up at the sight. There is that strange feeling, again, and it tells her it is right to see this woman graced by starlight. 

Yaz’s gaze is caught by something down below, in the garden which sprawls around the mansion. It is ill-kempt, lawn overgrown, flowerbeds wild, and there, sat amongst nature’s domain, is a small wooden shed. It looks out of place against the Georgian mansion, the type one might find in any old garden centre, twee little gabled roof and all. It makes her laugh.

“Strange.” She remarks. “Having a garden shed when it don’t look like any gardener takes care of this place.”

Beside her, T tenses, and her eyes skate over the shed but don’t remain on it, looking away towards the stars. “The shed is dangerous.”

Yaz cannot stop her eyebrows from raising. _Don’t act surprised. This woman obviously has a very different outlook on things than use. Bring your curiosity forth._ “Why?” She asks, keeping her tone easy.

T shudders, still staring at the stars. “Because it is. They say it is.”

Right. This logic is unnerving, and Yaz asks, “Who are your minders? Are they family?”

T considers this, head tilting to the side. “… Of a sort. Not sure. What is family?”

Yaz considers this. “Well, for one, are you related? By blood? A _genetic_ family.” She feels slightly uncomfortable, but part of her curiosity is borne from a concern for this woman with the knowledge that Yaz is in a position, as a police officer, to raise concerns for her welfare. Although, the thought of the police, of the order of outside having any jurisdiction within the grounds of the mansion seems strange. Inconceivable, they are cut off here. Yaz is the only connection. She has to make the decision now. Suddenly it is daunting to her smarting head.

T thinks hard, gaze dropping to the floor. “I don’t think so. But they look after me, they give me these books and the paper and the star-charts and the telescope.”

_Is that what she thinks family is? Locking you in and then making it sumptuous so that you do not realise it is a prison?_

Yaz feels angry for this woman, this woman she barely knows, but Yaz has learnt, from her life being beaten down by those who had feigned nicety, that there sits in her an innate sense of knowing when people are being genuine or putting on a façade, and nothing T has done so far has been fake. So Yaz feels cross not at her, not distrusting her, not any more than one might distrust a stranger, but at these ‘minders’. What a name for yourself, with a grown woman at that.

“I don’t think I should like to go outside.” T mutters and her eyes return northwards, to the stars and a moon which waxes before them lazily. “But I would like to be among the stars, I think.”

Wanderlust tone sings sorrow and Yaz feels her chest tighten for this woman, lonely in her room shut off from the world, shut off from time. She needs a helping hand, someone to reach out, Yaz thinks, someone who does not call themselves a ‘minder’ but instead a… friend.

“Don’t you get lonely?” Yaz asks her.

T consider this, cheek twitching. She looks to Yaz, looks her in the eye, the first time, and Yaz’s own chestnut eyes meet hazel luminescence and see multitudes reflected in them, things Yaz cannot understand, but yet are so beautiful, and captivating, she longs to at least try. “I don’t think I know what that means.”

“Don’t you want to be with other people? Don’t you want a… a friend?” Yaz asks, clearing her throat.

“They were always for other people.” T explains, as if it is obvious, although there is something dragging in her tone, something like longing. “Not for me.”

Yaz hesitates, holding the other woman’s gaze. “Well, I’m here, now. Couldn’t I be your…. Friend?”

T’s eyes widen imperceptibly, and her bottom lip quivers before she eventually asks. “You would _want_ that?”

Yaz cannot explain it herself, although she knows she is offering out of more than just concern for T’s welfare, for being the one who is her link to the outside world and possibly some help to get her out of here, but still, she cannot explain it, only knowing that the things which sits and blooms like a flower in her core desperately wants to be friends with this woman. “… Yes, I do.”

T still looks unsure, shooting Yaz a disbelieving smile, all pearly teeth. “You’re just saying that. You’ll leave, soon enough, be back in your normal life.”

“Don’t mean I won’t come back.” Yaz says with her own smile, bright and wide, and it encourages T to broaden hers.

“You would?” T asks her, and Yaz nods, making an affirmative hum.

T’s joy is infectious, delicate and tentative, shining gold amidst quartz, ready to be uncovered and preserved and admired, and Yaz feels her smile widen even more, trying to match it. “I’m still curious!”

T laughs, head tipping back and nose scrunching up. It hits right at that warmth in Yaz’s core.

T shows Yaz the different constellations in the night sky, letting her peer through her telescope when her pointing finger is not enough. Yaz is immediately drawn in by the woman’s passion, her excitement, how much she knows and spiels off at the rate of a thousand words per minute. She is certainly more relaxed than she had been when Yaz had tumbled through her window, and now that her fears have fallen to the side Yaz can feel how the loneliness she could not place has seeped into her, the desperation now in the way her words leave her, sharing with another person. And Yaz takes it all, because she is desperate for it in her turn; how bizarre, she thinks, to have thought twenty-four hours ago she would have been in this position, cut off, adrift, but with an improbable woman, who now she is with she cannot imagine being without.

T talks until she is breathless and there are no more stars to name, so they move to the chaise longue and she begins to discuss her favourite novels. Here is somewhere that Yaz can relate with her, and they spend Yaz does not know how long discussing _Jane Eyre_ and _Wuthering Heights_ and getting lost in fictional words as they, too, are lost in this single room.

When that conversation dies down, and the candles illuminating the room have melted down a considerable length, Yaz looks with reluctant eyes to the clock, to how it is ticking on later into the evening. She really should go, no matter how much she does not want to… She wants to talk more, learn more, understand T better…

T catches on to where Yaz is looking, and turns her gaze to the clock. Her eyes widen in alarm. “Oh no….” She says.

“What?” Yaz asks, immediately concerned by the sudden tension. “What is it?”

“You need to go.” T mutters, throwing the book in her lap onto the pile next to her. “They can’t know you’re here.”

“Who? Your minders?” Yaz asks as she allows T to usher her off the chaise longue. She accidentally steps on the cool cloth, long abandoned to the floor as Yaz’s fascination had taken over from any painful feeling from her wounds; that have sat like an irritating static in the background of her consciousness.

“You need to go before they see you.” T says, fingers fumbling on the window latch and dragging it up and open. She turns to Yaz with a wince, sorrow catching at the corners of her eyes. “Sorry you have to go through the window.”

“S’okay.” Yaz reassures her as she moves past her and hikes one leg out of the window, setting her foot on the rooftop. Her upper body remains inside the house, one move between reality and this strange wonderland. “Thank you, again, for looking after me.”

T swallows, eyes fluttering to the floor, hands twisting. It is sad to see her look so worried, so despondent, to leave her. Yaz wonders if she thinks Yaz might never return, despite her reassurance; this must have been as jarring to her as it was to Yaz. Just as extraordinary.

“I promise I’ll come again.” Yaz reassures her, and hope glimmers on T’s face like the setting sun catching at the waves, shining light on the mysteries which lurk down below.

Yaz is just about to duck below the windowpane, very cautious of her bruised head, when the other woman suddenly gasps and moves forwards towards her, panic present on her face once again as she implores to Yaz, “Yaz! You can’t tell anyone about this! If they knew you were here and that I’d told you and then you told someone in the _outside_ then-”

“Woah, hey, it’s fine.” Yaz attempts to calm her. Her own heart rate has soared in the face of the woman’s distress, pounding furiously in her chest. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

“You can’t! You can’t!” T reiterates, a furious whisper, face still wretched with despair.

“I promise.” Yaz assures her. This goes against her best concerns as a police officer, knowing she is leaving this woman trapped here, but T’s trust is more important to her, and if it makes the woman happier to be appeased of being kept a secret Yaz will do so. Yaz’s secret, and only Yaz’s secret. “Hey, I’m your friend, and friends keep promises.”

T’s breath shudders out of her, grating at her lungs, but Yaz can see her panic crumbling brick by brick, her shoulders dropping. “You promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.” Yaz reassures her. Both women turn at the sound of footsteps echoing loudly outside of the room, and T turns back to Yaz with wide eyes.

“You need to go!”

Yaz does, swinging herself out of the room and onto the roof. Her footing is surer this time, crouched on the slope, although she feels the back of her neck prickle in nervous anticipation of another crow attack. T peers out of the window, hands already poised to close it shut after Yaz, looking down at her.

“Goodbye, Yaz.” She says, and the way the window slams after her farewell, the sound of the lock clicking on the other side, feels more final than Yaz would like, and she promises to herself she will return as soon as she can, fight through packs of wolves and flocks of crows if she has to, to see this impossible woman again.

No crows swarm her, and no baying dogs charge at her, and Yaz returns over the rusted iron gate to her car, head spinning, heart pounding. She keeps the Mansion in her eyeline as she pulls slowly away, peering back to see the one illuminated window, glinting lightly, from the side of the building, until with reluctance, she turns back to road and towards reality once more. 

* * *

The wind sneaks below the door, caressing wood, and in the candlelit room the woman tenses, huddling into her bedcovers.

“No.” She whispers. “Not now.”

But her pleas go ignored, for the wind summons its power and begins to spread across the room, slithering snake-like until, one by one, all the candles in the room are extinguished and the woman is thrown into near-darkness, the only reprieve a sliver of moonlight cutting through the room like a dagger through a gap in the curtains.

“No, no, no, no, no.” T whispers, breath catching in her lungs.

Papers begin to drift, being picked up into the air in a reluctant dance, floppy and lifeless as the wind twists them and tugs them up and up. The windowpanes begin to rattle, and T puts her hands over her ears, anticipating what comes next knowing it will for it happens every time, and lets out a short cry when the windows fly open, frames banging and curtains flapping as the wind becomes furious in its majesty.

“Make it stop! Please! Please make it _stop!”_ T cries, huddled on her bed, hands over her ears, eyes clenched shut as her heart beats furiously in her chest. She can still hear the wind whistling past the rushing of blood in her ears and a long cry leaves her throat unbidden as she is completely overwhelmed by the tempest around her.

A figure comes striding into the room then, strong and unassailable against the wind whipping up a whirl. They survey the scene, the figure huddled on the bed, and a smirk tugs at their lips.

They sigh, making a contrivance of it, a tutting sound of mother-like impatience, and stalk over to the windows, pulling them down and locking them shut tight, pulling the curtains closed after them. There is a small gap between them through which the garden and the night sky is visible, moonlight shining through. The wind dies down, loose pages flutter down to the ground again and a heavy silence sits in the sudden absence of the violent course of air. The woman on the bed whimpers once more, still huddled, eyes shut tight. The figure sighs again, and hands on hips approaches the bed.

“Come, now.” They say, regarding T with humour hiding just behind put-upon concern. “None of this, it’s just the wind!”

“No, no, there’s a ghost, I know there is!” T protests. She lets out a small cry. “Please light a candle! Please.”

The figure tuts and shakes her head as they sit on the edge of the bed, shuffling towards T. “Really! Scared of the dark at your age!”

“Please!” T cries. “I just want a candle! I don’t-!” Her voice catches as something else comes to her. Her eyes clench even tighter, taut and tense wrinkles forming in her skin. “I don’t-!”

The figures sighs and shakes their head again, diaphragm convulsing as they fight to keep down their laughter; they must be the concerned minder, now. They put their arm around T’s bony shoulders, pulling her close. The woman relents and with a cry huddles into their side, hiding her face in their torso. Slowly, the figure’s hand begins to move across T’s shoulder blades.

“I don’t-” T’s words tremble out of her as her body shakes. “I don’t know how old I am.”

“Hush now.” The figure says. “What matters is you are safe in here. No more nasty wind to scare you now.”

“No, no…” T mutters, still caught in her internal tempest.

The figure shushes her again, joy creeping up their spine as they soak in the pain they can feel radiating off the woman in their arms like a tangible force. She will be ripe soon enough, they know.

They go to pull away, but T clings tighter, arms wrapping around their waist. “Please don’t go! Please!”

The figure’s eyes narrow, and they weigh up their choices. They should leave her now, increase her pain, but the scene is so amusing, it might be worth the small comfort she is perceived to give by the woman in her arms; the pain lost will be made back up again soon enough, anyway.

And so, the figure shuffles further onto the bed, leaning back against the bedframe, and T sniffles, sinking into their embrace. They will send her to sleep soon enough, this comfort cannot last too long, but the falsity of it all, T the apex of their play, their finest creation, oh well it is a delight to bask in.

Basking in the dark. They like the sound of that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... I hope you enjoyed! As you have most certainly clocked, T is the Doctor- and I was worried at first about posting this as you'll see she's a little different in character from the Doctor herself, but there is a reason for this, and it is not facetious, so I hope you like her as much as the Doc! 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and, although I'm a day early- Happy Halloween! 
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1 
> 
> Come say hi!


	3. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the kind comments on the last chapter- I'm quite nervous with posting this one just because it's very different, so to have the kind words last week was very encouraging.
> 
> Enjoy! 
> 
> CW: just want to let people know just in case that T gets very put down in this chapter, is belittled- I want to err on the side of caution in putting this note here.

Yaz tells no one where she has been, but the mansion stays with her long after she has left, in the cuts and bruises on her body, the smarting of her head, and autumnal eyes which haunt her dreams like a siren, calling to her to return.

Yaz sticks to her promise and does not tell anyone about the Mansion; she feigns having fallen on slippery wet leaves and ignores Ryan’s raised eyebrows at the wonder of how her jacket got ripped doing so. Nor does she tell anyone anything about T, although she sits there, on the tip of Yaz’s tongue, desperate to be spoken of, her existence shared with others, but… Yaz keeps her promises. So, swallowing down the urge, she continues with her life without a single whisper about the other woman.

Only in her dreams, lying in bed in the dead of night, does she allow herself to think about the other woman, to whisper under her breath her name as if entranced by a spell, drawn to her in her unconsciousness. She is itching to go back.

And so, a few days after she had first entered the mansion, Yaz finds herself standing outside the gates once again, twilight settling around her. She is free this evening, no one will miss her, no one will care where she goes; her time is her own, and she is seeking what she desires.

Yaz has made a plan in her head for if the dogs and the crows come at her again, and as soon as her feet hit the ground on the other side of the iron gate she is off like a shot, pelting across the grass in front of the mansion. Her police training comes in handy, for she braces herself to slam into the trellis, and just as she does the howling dogs turn the corner of the mansion and come careening towards her, mouths slavered with saliva, tails wagging in malevolent joy. She scrambles up the trellis, hearing their calling her insecurities to her, but she deafens herself to them and focuses on hoisting herself onto the roof, satisfied when the dogs scamper away when her feet hit the tiles.

It is like a game, and Yaz has no idea why it is like a game, and whether she should wander if she has been bewitched by the jewel in the middle of the maze, but she plays by her own rules and seeks out that jewel because she wants to, not because the game dictates she should.

She braces again for the crows, moving quickly across the tiles, slipping a little but keeping her footing as she works towards the window behind which T resides. She hears distant crowing, and she edges closer to the window and raps desperately on the windowpane, risking a glance behind her, seeing slick wings glinting in purple twilight, beady eyes, sharp beaks-

The window pulls open, and T’s wide eyed shocked expression looks down at her, and Yaz shoots her a small smile before pulling herself in- just in time, too, as no sooner is she a heap on the floor, T sliding the window shut behind her, then the birds are slamming into the window with beaks and caws, baying for Yaz. T stumbles backwards, shocked, barely dodging Yaz and tripping over her legs, shying away by the mantlepiece, hand gripping smooth marble. Yaz breathes heavily, catching her breath, and both women wait until the birds retreat, their calls ringing into the night until there is silence.

“What was that?” T asks her, stepping forward a little, curiosity fighting through her fear, as Yaz scrambles to her feet.

“Not sure, but those birdies seem to have it in for me for some reason.” Yaz says, shooting her a flashing smile, exhilarated at having made it to the room unscathed. T’s lip curls and she shudders, muttering something along the lines of ‘horrible’ under her breath.

“I was too quick for them, though.” Yaz says, winking at T. The other woman’s cheeks tinge a little pink and she stares at Yaz, mouth slightly open.

“I didn’t- I didn’t know if you would come back.” She admits, and Yaz feels her humour drain from her, guilt taking its place.

“I’ve only just had the time. Sorry. Been… busy.”

T is still looking at her amazed, head shaking slightly. “You came back.”

“Yeah, of course I did, I promised.” Yaz says with a smile. “Friends, remember?”

T’s mouth drops open a little further, and she scrambles for her words for a moment before saying, “I thought I’d scared you away. I thought that- that this was too weird, I was too odd for you to want to come back.”

“’Nought wrong with different.” Yaz reassures her. “And you’re not odd, you’re…. fascinating. More fascinating than anyone out there, anyway.” She says, gesturing with her thumb to outside the window.

T looks uncertain, although Yaz sees that hope glimmering beyond doubt; it seems there is something more to the uncertain shyness the woman carries herself with, as if below that sits something different, something more…. Exciting. She wears the nightdress again, and it makes her look soft and delicate, but Yaz wonders that there has to be something steely beneath, to have survived this long trapped inside and still preserve within oneself a hope you might have something more than this, be something more…. Gold trapped in quartz. Be multitudes.

“I am?” She asks Yaz, voice raising at the end.

“Yeah.” Yaz says. “Besides, I’ve never met anyone who knows so much about the stars.”

T smiles at that, a light laugh in her throat as she breathes out, and before Yaz knows it, she is being dragged into a conversation on star formation and black holes, and she allows herself to go willingly, more than happy to be dragged into T’s orbit, into her wonderland. 

* * *

A pattern establishes itself, and twice a week Yaz sprints across grass lawn and summits a roof to reach the impossible woman, ready to be pulled into her world and shown many a wonder all from the confines of four walls.

Her feelings for T grow past fascination with the new and different and begin to harbour themselves in her heart like a constant comfort, a warm hearth on a cold evening. Yaz can barely understand them, but she does not fight them, not when something has finally changed, when life has something else to offer her.

She only wishes she could uncover the mysteries surrounding the other woman a little better.

It goes unsaid for a long time the reasons for why T stays trapped in a mansion and is so scared of the outside, their focus instead on fictional worlds and stars and space, which T seems to know a considerable amount about. And Yaz sees hide nor hair of her minders, and when it gets risky, and they hear footsteps echoing in the hallway outside, T ushers her out of the window with such panic in her eyes Yaz cannot do anything but dash through the sash.

And when she returns, sometimes the other woman seems even more subdued than usual, pale and weak, as if she is anaemic, perhaps she is, but in spirit as well as body. It does not take long for Yaz to bring her out of her shell, but the lingering sadness sits heavy in the room, and Yaz longs to ask her but does not want to, not when she can see her visits have become precious to the other woman, who begins to wait impatiently at the window for Yaz, and she does not want to sully their time with making the other woman upset. So, they continue on in their wonderland together. 

It is not until Yaz has been visiting the woman twice a week for three weeks that she finally asks Yaz about the outside world. The discussion comes on the wings of Yaz admiring the paintings in T’s room, the other woman pointing out the specifics of each painting she likes. Yaz had been perplexed, at first, by the fact that they depict the outside world, a place she fears, but she gets her answer when the woman admits, voice quiet, “This is how I’d like the outside to be.” Yaz turns her gaze to her, sees her caught in the glinting light of the fire burning lazily away in the fireplace, her eyes faraway and wonder filled. “Like these paintings.”

Her eyes stray to the chaise longue, which is more a bookcase than her actual bookcases. One of the books is open on a title page: _Hamlet,_ by William Shakespeare. She looks at it with a crease between her brows, eyes troubled. “But I think it’s more like the books, isn’t it? More tragedy?”

Yaz considers this, trying to find the right answer. She does not want to tell T she is wrong, Yaz isn’t sure if she is, but she does not want to reinforce her fear. After a while, she says plainly, honestly, “I don’t think it’s that simple. I think there is good and bad in the world. Bad things happen, but so do good. It’s always in flux, never stable. You just have to believe in your actions being good, and sometimes that’s all you can ask for. You can’t control the actions of others.” She thinks of the ‘minders’, these faceless people, thinks of her own inaction, of not calling this in, tries to swallow down any fear. Perhaps not best to tell T Yaz does not feel like a good person right now, keeping her to herself. 

T considers this for a long moment, the ticking of the clock and the crackling of the fire accompanying her pondering. “So, it’s all about choice?”

“Exactly.” Yaz says with a smile. She allows her past experiences to tint her next words, and it is easier to dredge them up when telling a person it is a sign of strength. “You choose who you want to be. Never let anyone tell you who you are.”

T flinches slightly, barely imperceptible, but Yaz is watching her face closely. She internally closes in on herself, doubt filling her eyes, and Yaz winces, but knows she was right to say such a thing; it has helped her so much, and she thinks it might be able to help T, too, eventually. “I don’t think I could do that.” She admits, smiling sardonically, eyes tracing the movements of the flames.

“Why?” Yaz asks, curious.

T does not answer, face still caught in a miserable smile, a contradiction, as Yaz finds the woman being: to the outside world, to the time, to the inner steeliness Yaz can see peeking through. But it is not as easy as Yaz saying a few words of encouragement to shuck off a thin nightgown of a prison uniform and however long it has been of being told you cannot go outside, that the outside is dangerous. There is one last remark she would like to make before she thinks she’d best divert this conversation before she tips a fragile balance. She remarks, “You weren’t scared of me.” Yaz

T stares at her with wide, unblinking eyes. “You’re different.”

“Why?”

“You’re one of the brave ones.” She remarks. “You’re more powerful than the world.”

Yaz’s heart catches at her words and holds onto them with an iron-clad grip, racing forwards into a sprint. One statement like that from one person like this and the names that Yaz was called for years seem so pathetically irrelevant, their power is nothing compared to this woman’s. If only she knew she had that power.

The clock chimes nine-thirty, and both woman sigh, knowing their time is soon coming to an end. But is better to know that they will soon see each other again, that slowly they are coming to stay with each other much longer than a few hours, imprinted on each other’s hearts and minds. 

* * *

“T. Come. Dinner.” The figure calls, and T increases the march of her pen across the page of her notebook, keen to get down what is in her head before she forgets it. The figure waits at the door, one hand on the doorknob and sighs. “T. _Now._ ”

T finally relents, throwing down her pen, wincing when some of the ink splatters across the sheets of her bed. She hopes the figure did not notice, Tecteun would not be best pleased.

“Sorry.” She says, head bowed as she moves past the figure at the door. The figure stops her, taking a hold of her hand, inspecting her fingernails. They are stained with ink. It crawls under her cuticles like ocean water. T winces.

Tecteun tuts. “You’ll never learn, will you?”

T winces again, but Tecteun drops her hand and instead place it on her shoulder, and with her other hand takes hold of T’s chin and tilts it until the other woman is looking up at her; Tecteun is taller, it pleases her to tower over the other woman. She smiles with sickly sweet savagery. “I do it for your benefit, you realise.”

T nods automatically, squirming a little. So impatient. Tecteun sighs. There is only so much you can try to change, but some things will always remain a constant. Best up the attack on them, then. “Hmm?”

“Yes ma’am.” T mutters, eyes not meeting Tecteun’s. Tecteun smirks, letting go of her chin and gesturing for her to start moving down the corridor.

The mahogany table in the dining room stretches across the expanse of the space, deep dark wood making a strong contrast to their fine white china, the pale fabric of T’s nightdress; Tecteun likes her to wear it to dinner, to make her feel like a child with it on whilst the rest of them sit in their everyday clothes to eat. Well, what appears to be everyday clothes.

“What did you do today, T?” One of her companions asks. He looks like a middle-aged man, face gaunt, hair close-cropped. Serious. Stern. He looks down on T, seated at the head of the table so that they can all see her, like a headmaster on a pupil.

T fiddles with her fork, twirling the carrot pierced on the end of it. “Read. Wrote.”

“Wrote?” Headmaster questions her, peering imperiously. “What do you _write_ about?”

“All sorts.” T mutters, reluctant. Tecteun catches Headmaster’s eyes. This should be fun.

“Don’t mutter, dear.” The third figure, pointed cheekbones, severe expression states in a clipped voice.

“Sorry.” T replies automatically, and Pointy nods, appeased. T looks to Headmaster. “About my dreams.”

All three figures laugh, voice rising in a symphony of mocking which makes T’s shoulders droop.

 _“Dreams?!”_ Headmaster states.

“Her head’s in the clouds half the time.” Tecteun says to him with glinting eyes. She can feel the pain radiating off of T in waves.

“They’re important.” T says, voice quieter, the twirling of her fork stopping. “To me.”

“Dreaming never does anyone any good.” Pointy says disapprovingly, knife carving into her slice of beef. “You think people in the outside spend their days on their dreams?”

T’s eyes drop to her lap, her hands return to it, twisting together. Tecteun takes another chance to make a dig, carving more pain into her figure. “Eat your dinner, T. And sit up.”

T does, a little more reluctantly than Tecteun might approve of, but she lets it go, too caught up in her mirth. Her companions share her glee. The pain they can feel coming off T in waves is already tantalising to their nostrils, their tastebuds, but they know to hold off until the right time. It is better to feast when she is ripe and ready.

They eat in silence for a while, the lazy clinking of cutlery the only noise, until T pipes up again. “Maybe people do dream in the outside world?” Tecteun sighs, imbuing the sound with impatience, but T continues, that little spark they cannot repress no matter how much they try. “Maybe they dream, and they make choices, and they make themselves happy. That’s what the heroines in my books do, sometimes.”

“T, we have told you, stories are not real! You think make-believe will help you out there? You don’t even know _what_ is out there.” Tecteun says, voice raising, clipped, hissing. Her companions put down their cutlery and stare at her, disapprovingly, judging. “It is far more dangerous than anything you read in those books! People are far more dangerous!”

“But maybe the world isn’t as simple as good or-”

“Enough! Where is this coming from?” Tecteun demands, slamming her palm against the tabletop. T jumps. “If this is the nonsense your books fill that head with, I will take them away from you!”

T pales, face caught in horror, her pain a tsunami roiling off of her. “No, no, please-!”

“Then stop trying to seek out answers! You don’t know what you’re dealing with!” Tecteun demands, and she leans forward and reaches for T’s wrist, wrapping her hand around it tightly. The connection strengthens, her pain is near-tangible. It sends a shiver of delight down Tecteun’s spine. T is trembling a little, and Tecteun curves her smile of pleasure into one of compassion, like a mother for their child. Her grip softens, taking T’s hand instead. Her voice lowers. “You know we only do this to protect you. Because we care for you, yes?”

“Yes.” T mutters, resignation heavy in her tone.

“Because you aren’t strong enough for that world, darling.” Tecteun states, sweet poison on her tongue. “You wouldn’t fit. They’d eat you up out there. You’re safer here, where we can look after you, and give you books and your telescope and food and a comfortable bed.” Tecteun shakes T’s hand in her own, and the other woman smiles at the small inkling of comfort she is being given. “So stop asking questions and appreciate what you’ve got here, because we don’t find it easy to look after you, even though we love you.”

T’s eyes glance from Tecteun to Headmaster to Pointy, and she wonders why their love looks so different on their faces compared to the care on Yaz’s. _Because Yaz does not know what you’re really like,_ a small voice instantly says, _And if she knew how weak you are, she would never return._

T shudders, a singular tear slipping down her cheek, and she nods, and Tecteun, pleased, retreats, adjusting herself in her seat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, dearest.” Tecteun says. She nods to T’s plate. “Now finish your dinner.”

When T returns to her room, when the door is closed firmly shut behind her, she pads over to the notebook she had discarded, picking it up and running her fingers over the words imprinted on the page in blue ink.

_Choose who you want to be. Never let anyone tell you what you are._

Such words are meant for those in the outside, not for T, and she clutches the notebook to her chest, as if she could drain the ink from the page and injects those words into her blood. If only she was that brave.

Angry and disgusted with herself, she throws the notebook to the floor, faltering only when she notices which page it has landed open on.

A female figure shaped from lead lines and curves has taken shape, the vision coming clearer with every subsequent visit from the woman until T is sure the woman she sees in her dreams is the same woman who comes through the window. Yaz smiles up at her, eyes twinkling, hair soft waterfall, all the things T dreams of and all the things she cannot be.

It becomes hard to look the drawing in the eye, and T turns to the bed, crawling under the covers and willing sleep as soon as possible. 

* * *

When Yaz next returns to the mansion, dogs and crows mere specks in her vision she moves so fast, pushing past those fears and doubts which call out in the night, far more excited about the prospect of seeing T, the other woman seems a little more deflated than usual, eyes faraway and distant as they sit on the chaise longue, no interesting anecdotes about space or her novels leaving her lips. The fire is not lit, the room is cold, for some reason, and it adds another layer of sorrow to the picture.

Yaz watches her, concerned, uncertain whether she should ask what is wrong. T speaks and solves her problem for her after a while, however.

“How did you get so brave, Yaz?” T asks her.

Yaz blinks, considering this. “Sometimes I don’t think I am.”

“But you are.” T remarks, looking to her, face pale and drawn, the fire burning gold against one side and carving out the shape of her cheekbone. She is like a sculpture, formed by hands into something beautiful, Yaz thinks. “I think you are. Where did you find the courage? It can’t have just been your curiosity.”

Yaz thinks long and hard, wondering what T is looking for from an answer. She sounds… desperate, as if she needs Yaz to confirm something to her. Yaz decides honesty is the best policy. “I had to realise that I was more than what I thought I was. I had to realise that I could be more than what the bullies had made me to be.” T makes a sympathetic sound and Yaz shoots her a sad smile. “I wanted more. Realised I wasn’t an inconvenience to my family and made the choice to want to be _more._ ”

“And how did you do that?”

Yaz shrugs. “From the help of people around me. Encouraging me to look at things a little different, showing me they were there, that I was loved. And then, you’ve just got to make that first step. Anyone could do it.” Yaz remarks, looking at T pointedly.

T watches her closely, and Yaz thinks…. _Perhaps_. Perhaps she is considering Yaz’s words, both in their direct meaning and what Yaz is implying… that she is that person there telling T she is cared for and encouraging her that she can be more and she can be brave. In fact, Yaz thinks she is being brave simply by asking these questions.

Before that perhaps can be fully grasped in its hands a sudden chill fills the room, and beside her, T instantly tenses.

“Oh no.” She murmurs, looking around her with increasing panic. “Oh, no, no, no.”

“T? What’s up?” Yaz asks, tensing herself for an attack. A slight wind is picking up, playing with the small downy hairs on the nape of her neck, picking up the ends of T’s. The other woman shivers, standing and taking a few steps backwards, towards the bed.

“No, no, not now!” She says, voice desperate, and Yaz stands herself and moves towards her, putting her hands on her arms in a comforting manner. The woman is wearing a long thick, heather grey dressing gown over her nightdress, and the material is soft under Yaz’s hands.

“T, what is it?” Yaz asks her, disturbed herself by this wind which seems to be trailing into the room like a snake. The dogs and the crows she has taken, but this seems odd as they are in the mansion, where Yaz thought nothing bothered them. maybe that the ‘minders’ are the greatest enemy, the foe Yaz has yet to see, should have tipped her off to realise this is not as safe a place as it seems.

T’s eyes close with resignation as the windowpanes begin to rattle and her body begins to shake as well. “The ghost.”

“The- ghost?” Yaz asks, words stilted in surprise. T nods miserably. She is tense, anticipating something, and Yaz looks around the room as the wild wind begins to blow ever more furiously and then-

The windows fly open, slamming, curtains flapping, and the candles extinguish, plunging them into darkness. The sky is cloudy, no stars and no moon visible. The dark is total, encompassing, eclipsing.

T lets out a muted, strangled cry, as if trying to hold it in but it wriggles its way out anyway and her cheeks flush, although in the dark she is just a series of small shades of pale skin to Yaz as her eyes begin to adjust. The rattling of the windows continues, the door is moving in the frame, like the low rumble of thunder before lighting strikes it is ominous, and Yaz feels a cold shiver trail down her own spine. This feels wrong… unnatural, perhaps… supernatural.

She collects herself. She has fought off rabid dogs whose snarls speak insecurities and crows whose beaks cut like daggers; she can face another challenge. Besides, the woman beside her is obviously terrified, no matter how hard she is trying to suppress it; Yaz can feel her body trembling, the aborted cries of terror. Yaz needs to do something. Now.

“T?” She asks, running her hands up and down the woman’s arms. “I’m going to go and shut the window. Hopefully the wind will die down, then. Is it alright if I sit you down on the bed?”

T gives no verbal response, but Yaz can just about make out the movement of her head in the dark, blonde hair moving in glinting silver. She doubts T can see it, but Yaz smiles, nonetheless.

She moves the other woman to sit on the bed. Luckily, they are stood directly next to it. She hears the other woman moan as Yaz moves swiftly across the room, carefully trying to dodge the chaise longue and the piles of books on the floor next to it, and the bed creaks a little as T climbs onto it fully. Yaz makes quick work of closing the windows, bright white paint catching at her eyes in the dark. As she does, thankfully the wind dies down, seeping out of the room, stopping its play with the curtains, the loose papers on the floor, the rattling and groaning ceasing. It is silent, except for T’s small cries.

“It’s gone, T.” Yaz says, trying to comfort and reassure her.

“Please light the candles!” T asks of her, voice miserable, high-pitched with anxiety.

“Where are the matches?” Yaz asks her, desperately trying to make out more than the large shape of the furniture in the room.

“Bedside table.” T mutters, and Yaz makes swift work of moving across the room to the bedside table, her eyes suitably adjusted to the dark to make out the shape of telescope as she births a wide circle around it.

She fumbles on the surface of the table for a moment before she locates the small box of matches which sit upon it, quickly sliding it open to pluck a match from its innards, striking it furiously against the side. A small flame, a beacon of hope, bursts to life, and it burns proudly, heroically, as Yaz moves to bend to where she can see, now, the candle sat in its holder on the tabletop, and shares its light with the wick, until finally there is a lit candle providing the room with a small sanctuary of light.

“I’m just going to light the other candles, T.” Yaz tells the woman in bed, who she still cannot see apart from a vague shape of a body, hair over her face, legs curled up. Yaz’s heart twists with worry.

She makes quick work of processing her candle about the room and lighting almost all the candles hanging from their candelabras, leaving some unlit for efficiency’s sake; the ones she has lit provide enough light for the room to be lit in a dull orange, catching at shadows on the walls as the flames flicker.

Yaz sets the candle on the bedside table again and finally turns to the bed, to the woman on top of it. She bites her lip, face creasing in sympathy and concern. She hesitates for a moment before shucking off her shoes and her jacket, leaving it draped over the chaise longue, and crawling onto the bed.

T is curled in on herself in a ball, hands over her face, fingers wrapped into her hair, pulling on strands, and her shoulders are shaking, but with trembles or tears, Yaz does not know. Yaz shuffles until she is sat beside her, hand hovering over her shoulder, wanting to provide comfort but unsure whether the other woman will appreciate it.

“T?” She calls. “It’s okay. I’ve lit the candles. It’s not dark anymore.”

T takes in a gulping breath, releasing her tight grip on her hair and tentatively opening her eyes. They blink blearily for a moment, tears catching at her eyelashes, roaming around the room, before she visibly relaxes into the sheets, palms resting against her forehead as she lets out a long, shaky breath. Yaz feels herself relax a little, however she tenses a moment later when the other woman begins to cry proper.

“Hey.” Yaz says, a quiet, comforting murmur. She relents to the urge and puts her hand on T’s shoulder, a light and warm touch. “It’s okay.”

T shakes her head in disagreement, turning herself away from Yaz, hands covering her face as she continues to cry. Yaz allows the woman her privacy for a moment, but she does not remove her comforting hand, instead letting it trail across thin back to rub comfortingly between her shoulder blades. As T’s crying continues, Yaz begins to get a suspicion about why her distress is continuing.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed.” She reassures the other woman gently.

“Yes, there is.” T mumbles back, tone ragged, muffled by her hands.

“Why do you think that?” Yaz asks her.

“Because you’re not scared, not like this.” T replies, tone filled with self-hatred.

Yaz considers this for a second, and shrugs, easily saying. “Well, that’s because I get scared by other things. I really hate spiders, for example!”

“No, no, it’s not the same.” T says forcibly, too forcibly, and Yaz purses her lips together, wondering if this is coming from whatever the ‘minders’ tell T, drill into her, somehow. The other woman begins to shake again with sobs, inconsolable. “It couldn’t be the same.”

“T…. I don’t think you’re weak, or anything. Pathetic. I would never think that of you.”

“But I am!” T protests, and she moves suddenly, twisting and moving to kneel up on her knees, looking at Yaz with her face caught in misery, painted with blotched reds and pale-white hues, tears pearlescent in her eyes. Her hands are splayed, palms facing up to the ceiling, nothing else to offer. “Don’t you see? I’m weak, so weak! I have to stay here because I’m so weak!”

Yaz feels fury cut through her like a sword, large and jarring and altogether too heavy for her hand. Not fury at T, but fury for her, for whatever lies have been so thoroughly told to her to make her believe that is the truth. It reminds Yaz of her own struggles, at school. Yaz knows the impact it can have, lasting years, staying with her still as she grows, the shadow against which she defines her sunny days, but this seems even more damaging, a more direct attack. If only it was as easy as washing away all that with a few words and comforting touches, but Yaz knows it does not work that way, had told T, not ten minutes ago, that the bravery must come from oneself, and so Yaz does the next best thing, the helping hand, the encouraging friend…. She comforts her.

“There’s no place for me out there.” T mumbles as Yaz very carefully takes her hands in her own, her digits cold and trembling slightly.

“Did your minders tell you that?” Yaz asks her gently.

“It’s the truth. They just… they do it because they care, because I’d be hurt, otherwise.” T says, as if she is reciting something. Yaz longs to tell her she is hurting now, in this gilded cage. “It’s what’s best, it’s _for the best._ ”

“You know, I don’t think that.” Yaz says, curling her fingers around T’s. she shuffles closer, until she can smell the scent of the woman. She smells like roses. Yaz wonders what she bathes in. “I’ve seen the outside. Come from it. I think there’s a place for you there, just as much as for anyone else.”

T shakes her head furiously, but her fingers do not retreat from Yaz’s. In fact, they tighten their grip, holding on tightly. Yaz presses on.

“We all get scared, we all have a right to be scared, and it’s okay if you are. Does not matter what you’re scared of, it does not make it any less scary to you, even if you think the fear is not as justified as others’ fears. You still feel those emotions, and they don’t make you weak, T, I promise you that… they make you _human._ ”

T’s head is bowed, Yaz cannot make the expression on her face, but she sees her take a few faltering breaths, considering what Yaz has said, head shaking slowly from side to side. Eventually says, “But I’m different. I’m not… not like others.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I haven’t’ been out there, I haven’t… I couldn’t!” T says, sentences abortive as she struggles to explain the theory that has been ingrained into her. She looks up at Yaz, blinking, face caught in disbelief, fear. “How are you still here?”

Yaz frowns. “What d’you mean?”

T shrugs, hopelessly. “How can you want to still be with me, spend time with me now you’ve seen this? Now that you’ve seen _it,_ seen how _pathetic_ I am. How ill-suited I am to be a friend of _you,_ Yaz.”

Yaz is speechless for a moment, taken aback by just how deep T’s misery runs, even though it is to be expected. Yaz licks her lips, summoning her emotions and trying to formulate them into words to get across just how she feels. She releases on of T’s hands, and brings it to her shoulder, trailing it up slowly, as the other woman does not protest, to rest against her cheek. “Because I don’t see you as any different than anyone else, not when it comes to being scared.” Yaz smiles, keeping a hold of T’s eyes with her own, channelling her belief and the strength of it through their gaze. “But I do see you as different in that you’re special, to me, you’re…. extraordinary.”

“-What..” T mutters, eyes blinking, frowning.

“I’ve never met anyone as brilliant as you, T.” Yaz says. “You’re my friend. I would never think you’re weak for showing me your fear.”

T still looks a little unsure, but Yaz can see it is a single line of thread, that the rest of her conviction has been worn down as Yaz has carved through them with a dagger of care, tearing the fabric.

“I don’t come here every week because I don’t want to!” Yaz says with a smile, shaking their hands where they are still tangled together. “I come because I look forward to seeing you, from the moment I leave through that window.”

“Really?” T asks, sounding a little less disbelieving and a little more… hopeful. Sun glinting on an ocean. Gold within quartz.

“’Course!” Yaz reiterates. She gives into temptation and allows her thumb to run over T’s cheek, feeling her soft skin under her pad.

“Yaz….” T murmurs, looking over Yaz’s face with her eyes as if trying to figure out whether or not she is real. Yaz smiles back, bright and gleaming, catching at the sunlight and the gold and using it to raise her own spirits.

Yaz feels dampness against her fingers as a solitary tear trails down T’s cheek, and she wipes the tears away with her thumb, keeping up a soft motion with her digit across T’s skin. The woman’s eyes are wide and trained on Yaz unblinkingly, and Yaz meets them with her own, and feels…. That odd feeling again, within her core, of warmth which feels familiar, care that feels comforting, as if they are more than these two people within this room, as if that burning warmth spans across the entire night sky, the universe, graced by starlight. Yaz waxes poetic, but does not know how else to describe what she feels inside, as if this woman is the right one, has always been and _will_ always be…

“Yaz?” T asks her, tone hopeful, light, wonderstruck herself. Yaz cannot help her gaze from flickering down to the woman’s lip, looking so soft in warm candlelight…

But then said candlelight flickers as a small gust blows through the room and a door slams down the corridor, and T flinches, and the spell is broken.

“Hey, come on.” Yaz says to the other woman as she looks around her at the room in fright. Yaz encourages T to follow her lead in lying down on the bed, on the many plump pillows and cushions piled at the head of the bed, Yaz’s arm wrapped around the other woman, behind her neck and across her shoulder, hand splayed across her back. T is tense to begin with, but she tentatively relaxes into Yaz’s hold until she is soft and warm in the embrace. Yaz herself is on alert for a moment anticipating whether the slammed door means someone is on their way and she will have to make a run for it, but when no footsteps march down the corridor, Yaz is appeased they will not be disturbed.

“If there’s ever a spider in this room, you’re going to have to get rid of it for me!” She says after a while spent in a silence only by the ticking of the clock and the sound of their own breathing.

T laughs at that, and the sound is so light compared to the heaviness of before Yaz feels lighter, buzzing with relief and joy.

She holds T for as long a time as they have before the clock strikes 9:30 and Yaz has to depart once more. She does so with a small, sad smile from the other woman, but Yaz is appeased by the lack of tension in her shoulders, and the way she leans slightly out of the window frame to watch Yaz go before she pulls down the window and locks it shut.

Yaz lands to the ground with an _oomph,_ dusting her hands off on her trousers as she begins to make her usual path back towards the iron gate. Something gives her reason to pause and reconsider, however, and her gaze travels to the shed perched across the lawn from her, unprepossessing, looking subdued, cowering on the edge of the treeline. Strangely, it seems to call to Yaz, and she is wary, at first, thinking of the dogs and the crows, but before she knows what is happening her feet are carrying her across the lawn and towards it, curiosity piqued.

There is nothing interesting, nothing unique, about the shed: it really is as twee-as-they-come-from-a-garden-centre, but Yaz has no idea why she finds her eyes roaming over it as if it holds wonders, why her hand begins to creep up to touch at moss-covered wood, to pull the handle.

There is the sound of a car horn blaring from far off, and the spell is broken, and Yaz blinks, dropping her hand back to her side. She gives the shed a once over, shrugs and begins to make her way back across the lawn and to the gate and reality, not sparing the shed one glance back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Projecting on characters? Never.... Except when I do which is always. lol.   
> The mystery continues... See you Saturday 😊
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1


	4. Rest Now

T is woken in whipping wind and sheer terror, and she scrambles upright in the sheets, teeth chattering, heart pounding, head spinning. All around her the room is caught in moonlight, blue and gloomy, and in the corners, shadows lurk, and panic surges in her as a wind begins to creep in through under the door and then-

BAM!

The door flies open, hitting the wall, and then the windows follow the course of the wind as it snakes through the room like an adder, poisoning T with terror. Her breath stutters out of her, sucked from her lungs by the hurricane in her room and in her mind, and following soon after is a low moan.

“No…”

The curtains flap about, the heavy fabric moving aggressively, and it hurts her ears and T brings her hands up to cover them. She cries out, a scream following her low moan, and makes the slow passage down into her curled-up position, the moon’s light not enough to stave off the terror of the shadows which lurk in the dark.

But then-

The moonlight _is_ enough for her eyes to catch sight of bright paper in the room, flung on the floor amongst other papers, but this page calls to her, a haven in the middle of the storm, and T freezes in her inward descent.

There is a face drawn on that page, a face she knows well, and it calls to her, a reassurance, an aid, a _friend,_ when T was not sure she knew what a friend was, and she longs for it now.

T gathers her courage and raises herself onto her arms, reaching forwards off the bed towards the floor. Her hand flails as she desperately grasps for the notebook, a few inches away from her finger tips, and she shuffles forwards a little more on the bed until finally, wind whirling around her, in her ears, cry leaving her throat, she grasps the notebook in her fingers and pulls it safely to her a chest, a boat coming safely into the harbour.

She scrambles back into the bed, curling up near the head amongst the pillows, dragging the sheets around her like a cocoon, notebook grasped in her hands. She lets out small cries as she rocks herself a little, staring down obsessively at the page, drawing its calming power and letting it fill her lungs.

The Yaz of lead and paper soothes her, her constant eyes warming, her long, trailing hair comforting in its soft and wavy lines. Her lips are plump, and T imagines the words of reassurance she would give her now.

But the image can only do so much, T cannot conjure Yaz’s words themselves, and she longs for the other woman’s physical presence, to feel her on the bed next to her, to hear her words. The wind’s voice rises once again, the window frames shaking, and the moonlight is not enough, and neither is the image, drawn by her hands, her _weak, scared hands…._

“Yaz!” She cries. “Yaz! Please!”

A figure appears in the doorway, but it is not Yaz. It regards her for a moment, hands on hips, before it sighs steadily and strides into the room, going through the motions of closing the windows and then the curtains, leaving a small gap for the moonlight. They move towards the bed, but T’s hand shoots out.

“A candle! Please!”

They sigh once more, but this time they relent. They are curious, if they are honest, to see what it is the woman clutches in her hands, why she had called out that name, so they strike a match and light the candle on the bedside table, pushing back the curtains of the four-poster so that the candle light graces the hollows of T’s cheeks and the page of her notebook.

“Yaz! Yaz!” She cries, and Tecteun raises an eyebrow at that, sitting on the edge of the bed and shuffling herself up until they are kneeling next to the curled-up woman.

“Now, now,” She says patiently, her eye caught by the two figures that come to stand in the doorway, looking on in amusement at the display. She catches their eyes, and her lips twitch upwards before her eyes turn back to T and faux concern tugs their lips downwards. “What’s all this?”

“Yaz! Is she here?” T asks her, eyes looking to her desperately, barely seeing her through her panic.

“Yaz?” Tecteun asks, frowning. Her eyes skate over the page, over a figure sketched in lead. “Who is Yaz?”

“She’s-she’s,” T scrambles for the word, tongue darting out anxiously to wet her lips. “She’s my friend.”

Tecteun cannot help it, she gives a short, sharp laugh. The two figures at the door echo her in a deep rumbling. “ _Friend?_ Where on earth would you have met a friend?”

Her eyes linger on the page, the remembrance of a young woman, a friend not of T, but of who she is not, and amusement curls at the edges, meeting the hunger at T’s pain until she is practically salivating. She lets her finger trail down to the page, run over the image of Yaz, smudge her slightly, creasing the page.

“Oh, dear darling.” She murmurs, allowing her other hand to creep to T’s face, to tuck her hair behind her ear, run the back of her fingers over her cheek. “I think you’ve gotten a bit confused.”

Her finger taps at the page, hitting Yaz in the face. A sudden drop of water drips onto the page next to her finger, soaking in, distorting words written in pen until they lose all meaning, drip drop following drip drop as T begins to cry. 

“No, no, she’s real! She’s not- she’s not-” T fumbles, her words becoming less certain as her terror takes over, and Tecteun draws the notebook away from her grasp, throwing it to the floor amongst her other papers. T sobs, the sound caught in her throat, a wretched thing which is sweet harmony to Tecteun’s ears. Her companions in the doorway also relish in it, taking in a deep breath each, chests expanding. She will be ripe again soon enough.

“People who imagine friends and are scared of the wind and the dark aren’t fit for the world. That’s dangerous.” Tecteun whispers into T’s ear as she curls her arms around her and slowly begins to rock her. “Best to stay inside and be alone.”

“Alone.” T mutters, an echo resonating clear agony. “Alone.”

“Yes, my darling.” Tecteun soothes. “But you’ll have me.”

 _And I’ll have you, soon enough. Wallow while you wait for the end of all things._

* * *

T is waiting for Yaz, anxiously peering just outside the window, and Yaz smiles up at her as she makes her way across the roof, present stowed away safely in her pocket.

Yaz pulls herself through the window with a helping hand from T, who clings tightly to her palm and does not let it go even when Yaz is safely inside the room. In fact, the moment Yaz’s foot touches wooden floorboard T is flinging her arms around Yaz’s shoulders, squeezing her in a tight hug.

“Oh, hey.” Yaz says, surprised but not displeased. She brings her own arms up to encase T, slightly concerned at the tight grip T has on her, and all that it connotes. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” T murmurs. “Just happy to see you.”

“Ah, right. Me too.” Yaz says, the other woman’s hair tickling at her cheek. “To see _you,_ I mean. I see my every day.”

T laughs slightly at that, and finally she pulls back, shooting Yaz a small smile, not meeting her eyes, a little embarrassed.

“I’ve brought you something.” Yaz says, and T’s face draws down in confusion as she watches Yaz fumble around in her coat pocket for a moment before she pulls out-

“What’s that?” T asks her, stepping forward in interest.

“A torch.” Yaz explains. The torch is a new one; she lost her old one on her first visit to the Mansion, somewhere between the trellis and the lawn. She clicks it on, and T jumps a bit but immediately hedges forward in fascination. Yaz loves that about her, that she is so curious about things which spike her interest. She hands it out to her, and the other woman takes it in long, thin fingers. “So next time the ghost visits, and you want a light, you have one. Simple as.”

“Oh…. Thank you, Yaz.” T says with wonder, watching the torch light beam around the room like a spotlight as she moves it to and fro. “Brilliant!”

Sadness twinges with delight in Yaz at the woman being so excited over something so ordinary, but she pushes it away and tells herself to appreciate the joy she has brought to T, who had seemed a little nerve-wracked when she had come through the window. Their time is for enjoyment each other’s company and seeking comfort in each other, and Yaz will not push unless T opens up to her about something in particular.

T clicks the torch on and off until Yaz warns her the battery might run out, and the other woman nods and reverently stows the torch away in the draw of her bedside table, out of sight of her ‘minders.’ When she turns back to Yaz, she fiddles with her hands in front of her nervously, wetting her lips with her tongue. “Yaz? I were wondering….” Yaz tenses, but keeps her face open and easy. “…Would you like to stay the night?”

Yaz cannot help but let her surprise show, but no sooner do T’s words hit her than a wide grin is spreading across her face.

“I mean, we don’t have to share the bed. I could sleep on the chaise longue, if you were more comfortable with that.” T says hurriedly, nervously whittling on as she is prone to do. It makes Yaz laugh affectionately. “And don’t worry about your clothes I’ve got something you can wear. Although, you don’t have to if-”

“T, it’s fine! It’s all fine!” Yaz reassures her. The other woman pauses, blinking slowly. “I’d love to.”

T’s eyes widen, hope glimmering light sunlight. “Really?”

Yaz nods. “Course!” There is no one at home to miss her, her parents are away for a few days and Sonya is most likely at her boyfriend’s.

T’s smile beams like that glimmer sunlight inside of her, her delight near tangible in the room. “Brilliant!” 

* * *

Yaz is offered the privacy of T’s bathroom to get changed in, and she pulls the door ajar behind her and pads into the space, feeling that slight twinge of uncomfortableness you always get when you are changing in an unknown space.

The bathroom is as fine as the rest of T’s room, with large clawfoot bath taking up most of the space, and toilet and sink also in situ. There is a floor length mirror against one wall, and Yaz keeps her back to herself as she strips down quickly and pulls on the clothes lent to her.

Yaz had been surprised to discover T does own a pair of rather modern-looking pyjama bottoms, and when she had pulled them from the drawers of the fine mahogany wardrobe in her room Yaz had uttered a secret sigh of relief; a long nightgown really is not her style. She does not think it is T’s either, but the other woman had explained her minders want her to wear it, and what her minders want, they get.

Yaz’s outfit is completed simply by her own t-shirt which she had been wearing under her jumper and coat, assuring T that it would be fine for her to sleep in. She tactfully shucks off her bra from under her shirt, rolling it up in her jumper and jeans and leaving her clothing on the small rickety chair in the corner of the room. She checks herself in the mirror for a moment, feeling far from glamourous but very comfortable, and heads out into the main room.

She is quiet as she comes back into the main room, and she falters in the doorway at the sight of T, I the middle of shucking off her dressing gown but getting the arm hole of her nightgown mixed up in the whole thing and exposing a creamy slice of skin delicately carved to shape her shoulder-blade and the ball joint of her shoulder. Yaz can just make out small freckles inflecting pale skin, and she stands for a moment, transfixed, until the other woman realises her mistake and slips her arm back into the sleeve, hiding that skin away.

Yaz shakes herself, the sudden heat within her, and instead makes a meal of pretending to come out of the bathroom, door creaking shut behind her. T turns, looking her up and down, taking her in, although Yaz could not say exactly what there _is_ to take in in a simple t-shirt and trousers, but she smiles and says, gesturing to the trousers, “Thanks for these, they fit really well.”

The bedsheets are cool against both women’s legs as they slip in, one on either side, and Yaz settles herself comfortably on her side facing T as she rearranges the sheets over them, complete with the thick throw over that. The weight is comforting, and with the heat of both their bodies, Yaz already feels herself beginning to warm up. T shuffles onto her side, too, and in the soft light of the room, candles lazily waxing away, her eyes look even more ethereal, more enigmatic, than usual. Gazing deeply into Yaz’s own, Yaz wonders if she might seek out the answers of the universe in those eyes. The strange warmth in her core. The longing in her heart.

“Yaz, what you said, last time… with the ghost.” T says, breaking the silence, voice soft. “Does that… if my fear is like everyone else’s… does that mean that I could be like everyone else? Does that mean I could… _choose_ who I want to be?”

“Absolutely!” Yaz encourages, voice equally soft but imbued with passion. She licks her lips, bringing forth an anecdote. “My friend Ryan, he’s got dyspraxia, which impacts things like his coordination, and I’ve known him since primary, and I know how scared he were, of having to do things some people won’t think twice about. But, he chose to try and do those things, to fight against the fear, knowing he could. To _own_ his fear. So, he’s enrolled in a uni course for engineering, and he’s slowly learning how to ride a bike. He’s getting better, actually.”

T’s eyes do not leave Yaz for one second as she recounts Ryan’s tale. She clears her throat. “So I could be whatever I wanted? I could be what I want despite my fears?”

“Mmmhmm.” Yaz nods in confirmation. “What do you think you’d want to be? If anything? You don’t have to be anything. You choose your own path.”

T thinks about it, brow scrunching in concentration, mouth slightly agape. “I think….” She says after a while. “That I’d like to be a Doctor.”

“A Doctor?” Yaz asks, nodding.

“Yeah, I like the idea of helping people.” T says, and she looks at Yaz. “Does that sound silly?”

“Not at all.” Yaz says with a wide smile. “In fact, I think it would suit you fantastically.”

T blushes, eyes falling from Yaz’s to the bed between them, the mere foot expanse which separates their bodies. Yaz’s heart rate increases at the thought.

“I never asked you what you do.” T says, looking up at Yaz again from below her lashes. “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

“It’s alright, I understand.” Yaz says, truthfully. T is scared of the elusive ‘outside,’ and their conversations towards it have alluded vaguely and in terms of Yaz offering her advice on what it is _really_ like, rather than on the specifics. She feels sudden nerves at what she is just about to reveal; she hopes T does not think she is doing this out of some sort of official duty. “I’m a police officer.”

T’s eyes widen in surprise, but she nods after a moment. “That makes a lot of sense.”

“Does it?” Yaz asks, reassured at the other woman’s reaction. With a jolt, Yaz realises T must trust her immensely.

“Yeah, because you’re so brave, and you also help people.” T says, and it is Yaz’s turn for her cheeks to tinge red.

“Yaz…” T says after a while. “You’ll never know how grateful I am you fell through my window all those weeks ago.”

Yaz’s heart increases its galloping at the words and as, under the covers, a hand brushes against her, testing the waters. Yaz moves her hand and entwines T’s fingers with her own, an invitation. T’s pupils dilate, looking with that wonder she reserves only for Yaz, and ever so slowly, Yaz brings their joined hands up and out of the covers, pressing her lips to the back of T’s hand in a light kiss.

The other woman’s’ breath stutters out of her, and Yaz presses another kiss, so soft and sentimental and soothing for this impossible woman she cares for so much and who she wishes she could whisk away from her as soon as possible and show her the wonders of the earth, show her how much of a wonder she would be on the earth, but she cannot, and so she settles for gentle kisses in the sheets.

T watches her, breathing steadily increasing, and when she speaks, Yaz’s name is an utterance, a whispered breath of disbelief and longing. “Yaz….”

What might have been in that moment Yaz will not know, for just then loud footsteps, three pairs of them, come from down the hallway, getting closer and closer. T’s eyes widen in panic. Their hands fall apart.

“There’s not enough time!” T whispers furiously, eyes glancing to the window over Yaz’s shoulder. Yaz thinks quick.

“Under the bed.” She says, and then she is moving, rolling out of the sheets and dropping to the floor and shuffling under the bed, just as the doorknob rattles and the door itself is flung open.

Yaz sees three pairs of feet, one set larger than the other two, she would assume male, enter the room, and one of the smaller pair steps forward, closer to the bed.

“T.” A voice says, soft and old and yet tinged with this undercurrent of power. “What are you doing in bed so early?”

“I…” Yaz hears T say, and she tenses at the apprehension in T’s voice. “I was tired.”

“Oh dear, darling, are you sick?” The voice says, and the feet move forward, and Yaz hears a rustling. Is she looking T over? Checking her temperature? The feet step back again. “You do feel a little warm. No matter. We’ll make you feel better soon. Come. It’s time for a session.”

“But…” T goes to protest, but the voice cuts across her.

“ _Now,_ T.” They say, more an order than a request, and Yaz feels fury coil in her gut. “You know you need this. We only do this to help you, yes?”

Their tone is condescending, and Yaz grits her teeth together, T’s muted, “…Yes,” like a kick to her stomach.

The bed above Yaz creaks as T moves, and Yaz sees bare feet hit the floorboards as T moves slowly out of the room, the smaller set and the other two accompanying her. The door clicks shut behind them all, and Yaz is alone.

She waits a few minutes under the bed in case they return, but when five minutes has gone by Yaz shuffles her way out from under the bed, body aching a little against the hard floorboards.

Yaz shakes herself out, feeling slightly hesitant, awkward, and worried for T as she stands in the quiet room, the ticking of the clock her only company.

Should she go after them? She is not sure, she does not know where they have gone, and she does not want to upset T or get her in trouble if Yaz is discovered. Indecision and inaction do not sit well with Yaz, and she hovers in the middle of the room. She just has a bad feeling about this, like the sensation of a snake with poisonous venom trailing down her spine.

In the end she decides to wait it out until T returns; whatever her minders are doing with her, it surely cannot be anything to hurt her severely, can it? The woman seems… if not the epitome of good health, at least healthy enough; although, Yaz has a very large suspicion that whatever harm they might be causing is all mental, anyway.

It has been almost forty-five minutes, going by the clock on the mantelpiece, by the time Yaz hears footsteps down the corridor again, and she darts over to the bed and slinks down under it, just as the doorknob turns.

She sees those three sets of feet again, and in between two of them the bare feet of T, although her feet seem to be moving in a stilted manner, dragging a little against the ground; by the proximity of the other two pairs Yaz would guess they are supporting her across the room. Her stomach twists with worry.

The bed creaks above her and T is gently lowered onto it, and a pair of wrinkled hands come into Yaz’s line of vision as they lift T’s legs up onto the bed, and Yaz hears sheets being arranged. T makes an aborted moan, and the voice, the one from before, whose feet hover off the ground by the side of the bed, obviously perched on the edge of it, makes a shushing sound.

“Rest now.” The voice says, quiet and calming but laced with something in the tone that Yaz cannot quite decipher. “You’ve done well tonight.”

T moans again as the two standing pairs of feet depart from the room. The other figure continues to perch on the bed for a moment, and Yaz can hear them making a low shushing sound, soothing the other woman’s distress.

After a minute or so they rise from the bed, but they stop, and Yaz strains to hear them as they whisper to T, “Dearest T… your pain is our pleasure.” And then they are turning on their heel and walking from the room, closing the door behind them.

Yaz stays still on the floor for a moment, nausea roiling in her at the woman’s words- _what on earth had that meant?!-_ and when she is appeased no one will re-enter anytime soon she shuffles her way out again, on the other side of the bed, where the feet had been, so she can look over T.

Her heart lurches at the sight of the other woman, so incredibly pale she is almost the same shade of snowy white as the sheets. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, blinking lazily, seemingly not seeing anything, as if she is half-asleep. The sheets have been tucked tightly around her body and Yaz does not like it, it makes her look like a patient, like she is ill, which she looks, but it was something those people, her _minders,_ had done, wasn’t it? And what had the woman meant by ‘your pain is our pleasure’? Something reeks of a rotten conspiracy, and Yaz feels anger travel through her like an eel. She questions whether she should have gone to her superiors, should have called this in…. but she is in too deep now, would not want to betray T’s trust like that, not when the woman hadn’t even blinked earlier when Yaz had mentioned she is a police officer, not assuming the worst of her. Seeing the best in her.

Yaz uses T’s trust in her to push her forwards as she perches down on the edge of the bed, putting her hand lightly on T’s arm; she will show this woman how she cares in the most direct way possible.

“T?” She calls, peering over the other woman. T’s head turns towards her voice, eyes blinking blearily, slightly out of focus. It is almost as if she has been drugged, but when Yaz peers into her eyes, her pupils are not dilated by any substance. Yaz calls her name again, her heart clawing at her throat with worry, and the other woman blinks lazily again. This time, her eyes focus on Yaz, and she smiles.

“Yaz…” She says, a light sound. Yaz deflates, her breath leaving her like a deflating balloon. She leans forwards further on the bed, hand trailing from T’s arm to reach for her hand.

“T, what did they do to you?” Yaz asks her, unsure whether she will get an answer. Her suspicions are confirmed when the other woman does not seem to hear her words, instead focussing intently on Yaz’s face, trailing over it lazily, and she smiles again. Yaz grips her hand tighter, squeezing it reassuringly, and keeps her voice comfortingly calm. “T, can you tell me what happened?”

T frowns, shuffling a little. “I don’t….” She begins, but her eyes droop dangerously and Yaz realises she is very close to falling asleep. “I don’t….”

“It’s alright.” Yaz reassures, relenting. Instead, she lets go of the other woman just long enough to move around to the other side of the bed and climb under the covers herself, bringing T closer, holding her in her arms to comfort her. The other woman hums contentedly, head resting on Yaz’s shoulder, and soon enough Yaz feels her go slack and she slips fully into sleep. “Don’t worry about it, just sleep.”

Yaz holds the other woman for a long time, enough time for the clock to chime twice the hours that have passed. She is filled with indecision as to what to do. One part of her is desperate to stay with T and comfort her and hold her in her arms and show her she is not alone, but another part wants to go and investigate, to figure out what has happened to the other woman, really get to the bottom of why she is being treated as she is….. Yaz makes her decision, then, as the clock chimes eleven pm, and she very carefully manoeuvres herself out of the bed, making sure T is comfortable in her absence. She allows herself the privilege of smoothing blonde hair back from T’s brow before she slips silently from the room.

Yaz has not stepped outside of T’s room in all the weeks she has been visiting the Mansion. She is met with a wide corridor, the wall on the side of T’s bedroom inlaid with doors at intervals, busts of faces with forgotten names captured in marble stood prominently on plinths between each room. Regency chic continues here, it seems.

What makes Yaz’s eyes widen, however, is the sweeping staircase that stands prominent and proud in the centre of the entire main entryway, sweeping up to the second floor where she is, continuing its sweep through the balcony that curves around the whole area of the Mansion; on the opposite side of the large space are more doors and more busts. The interior is dim in the night, candles flickering, but Yaz can see the fineness of the marble staircase, the rick oak of the banister smooth under her hand as she moves swiftly towards the staircase.

She peers cautiously down onto a large entrance hall, seeing the main door inset into the wall ahead of her. A black and white chequered marble floor spans out below, disrupted at intervals with fine pieces of furniture, but luckily for Yaz no ‘minders.’ She swiftly pads down the staircase, and evaluates from there.

There is grand room after grand room, drawing rooms, a dining room, all so very evocative of every Jane Austen dramatization Yaz has seen on TV, but nothing of significant interest to Yaz, nothing that screams _wrong-_ except for how very much trapped in the wrong time period it is.

That is, until Yaz stumbles upon a small staircase behind a door in the kitchen she had stumbled upon at the back of the mansion.

Wood creaks under her feet for the first few steps and then, strangely, the surface on her bare soles is cold, shockingly so, and Yaz moves quickly down the steps. It is darker down here in what she assumes must be a basement, and Yaz wishes she had brought a candle, or the torch stashed in T’s bedside table. Her heart is pounding, nervous despite herself by the oppressive underground darkness. She reaches the bottom of the stairs to be greeted by a cold, oppressive silence.

Something glinting catches at Yaz’s eye, and she turns towards it, until she realises that the glinting is all around, that the walls are in fact slick with something. She thinks, for a moment, it is moisture, but when she looks closer… Yaz’s shock travels through her body like a tsunami wave. It is _machinery._ Wires, glinting lights of mechanical things, posing as nature but very much artificial. They gleam with a dull blue light, almost like slick oil, and Yaz pulls herself back from touching it; it looks strangely unnatural, inhuman.

She follows the dully glowing lights, which barely light her way deeper into the basement until she turns a corner, and then-

It is all revealed to her, a wide expanse carved from rock and yet constructed in metal at the same time; a contradiction, as this whole house is. She stands over it, a small set of roughly hewn stairs leading down to what looks like some sort of laboratory, with more gleaming lights, in different colours, now, of red and orange and yellow, inlaid in metal machines, silvery steel glimmering, lining the room. The centre is taken up by a central column, a large glass-looking container surrounded by metal which creeps up the glass before amassing in a large console-like mass circling it, once again filled with glowing lights and metal wires and levers. Yaz blinks, barely taking it in.

It looks…. Alien.

She pads down into the space despite herself, unable to stop her feet, coming closer to the main console. Something catches her attention out of the corner of her eye, then, and she swallows icy shock at the sight of a seat, reminiscent of an examination table in a doctor’s office, except carved with a headrest separated from the mainframe, upholstered in oil-slick looking leather.

_Is this where they take T? Oh my stars…._

Yaz looks away from that horrifying chair, far out of her depth now, shocked to her core and yet she is not running in fear, and it is not just because Yaz is good in a sticky situation but… that rightness is in her core, again, as if this is familiar, and she tries desperately to ignore it as her attention is caught by and, in fact, she is entranced by….

Golden whisps dance around in the glass chamber, constantly moving, shifting, never staying still. Yaz can feel its warmth from here, can feel it in her core, too. Of all of this, the golden glow is what feels most right, and Yaz, barely thinking, reaches out a hand and places her fingertips gently against the glass.

The golden glow moves immediately towards her, then, as is by a magnetic pull, and as it caresses the glass which separates them, Yaz can feel its warmth, and her breath stutters at how comforting it is.

_What is this?_

“What are you?” She asks the golden glow. It cannot respond, but it does move slowly from brushing through glass by Yaz towards one of the metal buttresses attached to the glass, growing off the main console. Yaz does not know why she is talking to glowing gold which is seemingly _alive,_ but she asks, “Do you want me to touch it?”

Whether the answer is an affirmative or not she does not know as the gold cannot answer, but the feeling in her core means she does not think twice before she moves her fingertips from glass to metal.

“Ah!”

The metal is strangely warm to her touch, too, and Yaz cries out as she feels as if she has just got an electric shock, pulling her hand back and clutching it to her chest. If she had stopped to look, she might have seen the slight golden glow to her skin. But it sinks in below the surface before she does. 

“What? What was that?” She asks of the golden glow, but the substance, entity- _whatever,_ goes back to an arbitrary pattern of movement, seemingly ignoring her. Yaz waits, feeling confused and rather irritated, for a few minutes, but eventually gives up, moving backwards.

She has risked it enough this night, has strayed for a long time, and she thinks she best be getting back to T’s room now before someone catches her. She makes quick work of leaving the laboratory and the basement behind, heading back into the kitchen, reassured it is empty before she moves swiftly towards the main part of the Mansion and towards that sweeping staircase.

She is almost there when she feels it. A slight stirring of wind against her ankles, crawling under the thin fabric of her pyjama bottoms. She ignores it for a second, thinking it just natural, but then, it picks up, and the candelabras in the main room flicker a little, the flames dancing agitatedly. Yaz stops walking, watching the journey of the wind as the candelabras around the room flicker and flit. And then, with a long, low creaking sound, two wooden oak doors on the other side of the hallway creep open, as if the wind is trying to be discreet, trying not to signal to anyone else who might be lurking that it is there.

“You want me to go in there?” Yaz asks it, wondering why on earth she is talking to _air._

When the doors creak open wider, Yaz follows.

The room is one of the large, opulent drawing rooms Yaz has already scouted out for suspicious activity, cast in darkness and shadow. Furniture sits, a piano waits patiently to be used, a fireplace is dead. Yaz pads into it, looking around, wondering where the wind has gone; the air in the room is flat, that is, until, Yaz turns towards one of the large windows looking out over the garden…

She gasps, eyes widening, as the silhouette of a woman appears against the glass, glowing slightly, made of air and dust and slight gold glimmers; ethereal beauty that Yaz cannot help but gape at. Her features are not defined, she is more shape than human, but still, Yaz can make out a hand, reaching towards her, and then sweeping towards the garden.

“Who- who are you?” Yaz asks, finding her voice past the shock. Something has always seemed off about this place, and Yaz has been taking it in her stride, more than she thought she would, impressing herself, but this is truly bizarre, and beautiful, and intriguing, and yet….

“Are you the ghost?” She demands of it. “Are you the one who’s been bothering T?”

Yaz makes out a slight nod. She does not think this ‘ghost’ can talk. She steps forwards towards it, suddenly cross, wanting to understand. “Do you mean her any harm?”

The ghost shakes their head, dust particles, glimmering gold swaying gently from side to side before settling down again.

“You scare her.” Yaz says accusingly. “What do you want with her?”

The ghost gestures to the garden again, their movement a little slower this time, and Yaz frowns, but steps forwards, appeased that she will not be harmed, trying desperately to figure out whether this ghost is trustworthy or not- huh, there’s a sentence she never thought she’d ponder.

Yaz peers out. “What? What is it you-”

Her eye is caught by the shed- the elusive shed, stood there conspicuously, rotting away slowly. Yaz frowns. “The shed? Is that what you-”

But when she turns back to the ghost, the figure is dissolving, turning back into air and nothingness.

“Hey!” Yaz calls, as loud as she dares. She blinks, and perhaps it is her imagination, but she thinks the ghost waves to her, one short, sharp movement, before it blinks out of existence.

Yaz stands there for a moment, desperately trying to process what has just happened. Like everything else in this house, why had that ghost felt… normal? Well, not normal, none of this is normal, but… fine. Why had it felt fine? Like Yaz has dealt with things like this before? She shakes herself, beginning to move slowly out of the room, sparing one last backwards glance for that shed. The shed. Is that what the ghost wanted to show her? If that is what it wants with T, to show her the shed…. Then why? It’s just shed…. Isn’t it?

Yaz’s head is reeling, and in the late hour after all the adrenaline her body has burnt through this evening, she feels exhausted. She pads back to T’s room, thankfully meeting no one else, these elusive ‘minders’, the most dangerous thing in this house, she is starting to believe. She thinks maybe she should tell the other woman what she has found, tell her that Yaz will be there as they try and figure out what is happening and what has been done to her and what that ghost meant by ‘go to the shed,’ but when she slowly opens T’s door and closes it behind her…..

The woman sleeping there looks so peaceful, untroubled, unknowing of all the pain she is being put through for the pleasure of others. She needs to know, of course she does, that something is not right, that she is more than this, can be more, and Yaz has been slowly encouraging her, these past few weeks, but such a change of mind, showing how… _wrong_ everything is here will take time, it cannot be rushed into like the charging of an army to the battlefield. And the impact it will have on her… her whole world will be turned upside down, that would be daunting for anyone. Yaz needs to think. She needs to regroup and re-evaluate, and she needs to also get back into her world first, the world of Sheffield and work and friends and that sense of longing, to give herself a little perspective out of the situation.

And so, mind made up not to do anything just yet, Yaz closes the door quietly behind her and pads back to the bed, climbing in, carefully trying not to jostle the sleeping woman too much as she gathers her into her arms once again. T sighs contentedly, shuffling further into Yaz’s hold, and affection shoots through Yaz like an arrow, sending a warmth throughout her whole body. Indulging herself, encouraged by the gentle affection they had shared earlier, Yaz presses a light kiss to T’s temple.

This woman. She is the most important thing here.

And Yaz will help her in anyway she can. Be that kisses in bed or raising hell to rescue her from malicious hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Apologies, I know I have some comments I need to get to, things have been hectic but know I see them and appreciate them so much!
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1 
> 
> Come say hi!


	5. More than the stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support so far, I hope you enjoy this chapter! I need to reply to all the kind comments people have left and I'm sorry I haven't got to them yet, life is throwing a lot of things my way and I haven't yet found the time to give them the proper attention they deserve, but thank you and I'll get to them soon 😊

This is dangerous, T will be in such terrible trouble if they find out.

Words of encouragement echo in her ears of a voice familiar and warm, melting her insides like honey, have cheered her on as she had opened the door to her room and walked out into the hallway, down long swooping stairs, cold marble under her bare feet. Oh. Bare feet. Should T be wearing shoes? Possibly. Not important.

She shakes herself, focussing back on the task at hand. A set of fine glazed glass doors stands in front of her, calling for her to twist their handle invitingly, to step out… out into the garden. Hedges rise as if dragged from nature into shapes maze-like, overgrown, overtired, uncared for. There is a small stone patio just in front of T, all that is separating them a glass door and T’s choice.

The woman swallows down nerves, summoning Yaz’s courage, Yaz’s belief in her. Yaz thinks she can and Yaz…. Well, T cares what Yaz thinks, very much. If only it was easier to ignore the other voice in her head, Tecteun’s voice, warning her off this…. a voice that has always been there- well, T thinks it has, she cannot quite remember. Everything always sees fuzzy, small details she cannot remember. Only Tecteun is clear, only her words are clear.

Well, that had been the case, up until fairly recently. Now, however….

Yaz’s voice sings encouragement to her, to T, cutting across Tecteun, grabbing hold of that small rebellious streak in her and using it to drag her hand to door handle, pushing it down until it clicks and the door opens…..

A cold breeze hits her, and T startles for a moment, thinking it the ghost, but no, this breeze blows arbitrarily, no malicious intent, simply dancing its natural dance. T gathers herself again, curling shaking hands into fists, allowing herself to feel how pleasant the slight brush of the air on her face is, how it lifts her hair from her shoulders, whispers around her ankles. The sky above is bleak, clouds threaten rain, but in that moment to T it is _extraordinary…_

She edges forwards, gathering her courage, imagining Yaz’s hand in hers. Her foot is raised, ready to step out, so close to touching the mossy stone of the patio when-

“T!” A voice, sharp and severe, like a dagger dipped in lemon juice. “What are you _doing?!”_

T is pulled backwards, a sudden tug on her arm, and she stumbles with the inertia, falling into the room, barely regaining her footing. Tecteun moves swiftly past her, closing the door tight before she turns to her, face caught in a fury T has not seen so savage before, and her blood runs cold.

“T, what were you trying to do?” Tecteun demands, crowding over her until T is forced to sit as the back of her legs hit the sofa of the small drawing room they are in, slumping down onto the soft fabric.

“I- I was…” She fumbles for her words, heart racing out of control in the face of Tecteun’s fury. “I was trying to go outside.”

“After everything I’ve told you, after everything I’ve done to keep you _safe?”_ Tecteun demands of her, face contorted into something horrific. T feels terrified, more terrified than she ever has been by the outside. “This has hurt me more than I could possibly say!”

“No, no, please, ma’am, I-” T tries to make her understand, to make her see she was not doing it to hurt her, but that was never going to work.

“It is dangerous, T!” Tecteun reiterates, pointing to the outside. “It is dangerous to us all but to you more than most, and you know why, don’t you?” Tecteun demands, and when T does not immediately answer, gaping, Tecteun leans forward over her, hands gripping the back of the sofa. “ _Don’t you?_ ”

T nods, but that is not enough for Tecteun, and she grabs T’s chin with one hand, forcing her to look at her, to look her in the eye as she forces her to recite her own failures to her. “Why don’t _you_ go outside, T?”

“Because I’m weak.” T mutters, the words tearing her apart from the inside, stealing confidence as soon as it had grown from the roots and the soil that had trapped it. “Because the outside is dangerous, and I am weak and so there’s no place for me out there.”

“Exactly.” Tecteun spits. Her saliva hits T’s face. “So why on _earth_ were you trying to go outside?”

“I wanted to-”

“Wanted to what? To put yourself in dangerous and lay to ruin all I and the others have done to protect you, to make sure you’re safe. To _throw our generosity back in our faces?!”_

T tries to shake her head but Tecteun’s grip is too tight. She feels shame crawl inside her like a squirming animal. Shame at herself for not being strong enough, shame at having failed Yaz, shame at having betrayed Tecteun…. Shame for being so weak she fooled herself she could be anything _but._

“I cannot let this slide.” Tecteun tells her, and then she is releasing her jaw and grabs her wrist instead. “Come.”

Tecteun drags T from the room, the smaller woman’s feet nearly tripping and falling a few times as they make their way into the hallway and up the staircase. Headmaster and Pointy appear at the bottom of the staircase as Tecteun drags her up, and with a look from Tecteun they follow them up. T does not see them smirking as she is pitifully pulled along.

They reach her bedroom and Tecteun pulls her forwards so that she stumbles into the room and onto the chaise longue. She looks up at Tecteun, mouth agape, chest heaving as the woman looks around her, hands on her hips. Her companions stand next to her, arms crossed, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

“T.” Tecteun says to them, as she evaluates everything in the room, looking for… something. “Has decided she does not want our protection. Thinks she is strong enough for the outside.”

“ _What?”_ Headmaster asks, eyebrows raised in surprise, disgust. Pointy looks with disbelief, lip curled.

“No, no, that’s not-” T tries to defend herself, but Tecteun cuts across her.

“She has thrown our generosity back in our faces.” She begins to stroll towards the bookcases, running a finger over the spine of a book. The fire is crackling in the hearth, lit this morning in the cold light of an overcast day to keep T warm. T swallows, feeling sick; she _has_ thrown it back in their face, hasn’t she? There is the fire to keep her warm, the books to keep her entertained, the walls and doors to keep her safe. She feels something unpleasant curl in her stomach, poisonous with self-loathing.

“I didn’t mean it, I didn’t think!” She tries to protest, and Pointy turns sharply to her like a bird on the prowl.

“You shouldn’t think at all, T, because this is where it gets you.” She berates. “This is why we do everything for you, protect you, because you are too _weak_ and _stupid_ to know what is best for you. best for everyone.”

“I’m sorry!” T cries, a sob in her throat, tearing at her insides, breaking her apart. Tears leak from her eyes.

“There will have to be a punishment for this.” Tecteun says, eyes roaming the room again. She considers T’s notebooks, cluttering the floor, but no, no those are an extension of her pain, a place for her to express it, expand it, mature it like fine wine whilst it grows in her. The telescope, that keeps her longing for something else, something she does not even know she misses, so not that either….

The books it is, then.

She walks towards the chaise longue, and T cowers back, but she does not reach for T. Instead, she grabs at the volumes of books which rest next to her, T’s favourites, the ones she does not bother to put away. Tecteun walks towards the fire, looking back at T, raising the first volume, _Jane Eyre,_ aloft. “This is what you get for trying to be what you’re not, T. For taking our care for granted.”

T’s eyes widen, and as Tecteun drops the book into the fire, she darts forward. “No, please!”

Headmaster and Pointy grab her before she can reach either Tecteun or the book begin to burn away in the fire. The flames are roaring at their new feast, the heat is intense. Tecteun throws a second book on the fire.

“Please, please don’t!” T cries, sobbing, held between Tecteun’s two companions, struggling in their grip.

“This is for your own good, T.” Tecteun tells her, another book sacrificed to the flames. “You’ll learn from this, won’t you?”

“Yes, yes, please, please don’t burn anymore.” T cries, but Tecteun flings the last book in her hold into the fire. T sobs, head dropping, and Tecteun strides forward, taking her from Headmaster and Pointy’s grip and pulling her to kneel on the floor by the fire, crouching down behind her, holding her head in her hands, forcing her to watch.

“Watch, T, and know that this is all your own fault.” Tecteun’s says, and with T’s face turned from her there is a malicious grin on her face. “You caused this. You’ll have to pay for your actions.”

Tecteun can feel T’s tears soaking her fingers as she digs them into her cheeks, the other woman’s body convulsing with shakes. “I’m sorry…”

Tecteun turns to her two companions, and gestures to the door with her head. “Remove the rest of the books.”

“No, no!” T cries, but no one heeds her begging, and as she is forced to watch the stories she has called sanctuary burn to a crisp as around her her paper companions are removed bit by bit, shelf by shelf, until all that is left is gaping bookcases, looking like ribs empty of the lungs which they should hold, which have breathed life into T’s lonely existence.

When it is done, the fire is died down, and the room is void of books, does Tecteun release her and T slumps to the floor, curling in on herself. Tecteun stands and comes round to stand between her and the fire, considering her. “Look at you. You didn’t even get dressed. Don’t tell me you were going to go outside in your nightgown with bare feet?”

She laughs, her companions joining in, their laughs echoing in T’s ears. She feels destroyed, burnt out, diminished, just like her books. She wants Yaz, more than anything, but she knows she is not good enough for her. But she is also too weak, and she calls out, “Yaz! Yaz….”

Tecteun crouches down next to her. “Yaz isn’t coming. Yaz isn’t real.”

“No, no…” T shakes her head, tries to sit herself upright, but she is too upset, and her pain is radiating off her in waves. Tecteun’s mouth waters, every natural urge in her calling to feast on that pain. She gives in, just a little, and places a hand on T’s head, feeling the psychic waves of pain and drawing them from her, into herself.

She stops soon after, not wanting to overdo it, and she stands, letting out a long-contented sigh. T slumps to the floor, half-conscious.

“That was risky, so close to completion.” Headmaster berates his companion. Pointy also looks on with irritation.

Tecteun shoots him a side-eye. “Just taking what I was due for having to put up with this.”

“You can’t say you haven’t enjoyed it.” Pointy says with a raised eyebrow, and Tecteun considers this. Her mouth quirks up in a small smile.

“Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps it’s worked in our favour that she’s still just that little bit rebellious.”

“The thrill of the chase.” Pointy remarks.

“Increased her pain levels, of that we can be certain.” Headmaster remarks.

Tecteun hums and gives one last look back at the woman on the floor. She bends down, gently running her hand through T’s hair in faux affection. “I hope you’ve learnt your lesson, T. I hope you won’t take all we’ve given you for granted again.”

“No, no…” T shakes her head, and Tecteun smirks, moving her fingers from T’s hair to her cheek, lightly touching the red marks left from where she had held her head and made her watched her small solaces burn.

“You will not leave your room, no dinner for you today.” Tecteun tells her, and with one last brush of her fingers against T’s cheek, feeling the last entrails of her psychic link, of the pain she has soaked from her, Tecteun rises and strides over to her companions.

“The greater the pain the greater our power will be when we begin. And that will be soon.”

 _Soon. Soon it will be the end of all things. The world will burn like the books._

* * *

After that night, Yaz finally folds and, indecision and concern warring in her, she turns to the person she trusts the most to take all this in their stride.

She tells Ryan.

The man thinks she is joking at first, but when he sees the sincerity on Yaz’s face, her concern for T in the wringing of her hands and of the glint in her eyes, he sobers, and listens to every word she has to say. Doubt crawls across his face like a spider, and by the end of Yaz’s tale, he is not doubting of the authenticity of her story, but rather, what is really going on, and at play, within it.

“I don’t know, Yaz, this all seems a bit suspicious.” He says, leaning back in his chair. They are in a small café, in a corner where no one can hear them. “I mean, you say all this weird stuff is happening there, and then in the middle of it, you’ve got this woman- helpless, isolated, in need of a friend….”

“What? What are suggesting?” Yaz asks him as Ryan shrugs.

He shoots her a small, apologetic smile as he says, “Have you considered she might just be… using you?”

“What? Ryan, no! It’s not like that at all!” Yaz protests, immediately offended on T’s behalf. It feels weird to talk about her on the outside, to share her story and let it sit in a little café, but it does not make her question the authenticity of T’s feelings, even from the outside.

“Even if she don’t know it, there might be some sort of trap to lure you in.” Ryan reasons.

Yaz thinks this through, shaking her head slowly as she comes to her conclusions. “I don’t think any of this is targeted at me, I think all that happens revolves around _her._ The ghost, her minders, whatever they do to her…. They keep her clueless, they keep her… they keep her scared.” Yaz thinks and sits upright as things begin to occur to her. None of this should make sense, Yaz should not be taking this strange and supernatural events in her stride, btu here she is… and here Ryan is, too, also doing that, although his eyes are still wide with surprise. He is new to this, that is to be expected. “It’s like the Mansion is protected against us, the outsiders. I had to fight off those dogs and birds the first time, and it were like they were speaking to me to scare me away, make me feel like _nothing._ But why? Why like this? Is she special, or is it just some sort of sick game?”

When T had woken the morning after she had been taken away and returned, dozy and barely responsive, she had no memory of ever having been taken at all. Yaz had had to play it off, say she must have dreamed it, and had watched with worried eyes the other woman’s ignorance. She had had to leave soon after, before breakfast and the risk of being discovered, and she has not been back since. She is planning on going tonight. In fact…

“Ryan, why don’t you come with me?” Yaz asks her friend, and Ryan’s eyes raise in surprise. “You can see she’s not dangerous, she’s not using me or anything.”

Ryan looks unsure. “I don’t know, Yaz…”

“Aren’t you sick of all this?” Yaz asks him, looking around the mundane café. “Don’t you want something _more?_ There’s a _mystery_ here, Ry! Something actually worth being interested in. Come on!”

Ryan gives her a long look, considering. Finally, he says, “Alright.” 

* * *

Yaz bites her lip a little in guilt as she realises how much Ryan is struggling with scrambling over the gate, but she does not let it show, knowing he will only be annoyed at her if she raises it. He is annoyed anyway, just a little, Yaz can tell, although she can see he is excited, too. The sun is setting, twilight here is familiar to Yaz, but from the way Ryan peers up at the Mansion, having made it over the gate with minimal swearing, she can tell it is daunting in its bleakness, its eeriness.

“Remember what I said?” She asks him, already gearing up herself for the run. “Straight to the trellis, no looking back.”

“Right.” Ryan says, looking with trepidation at the trellis. He is a lot larger than Yaz, and Yaz seriously hopes it will take their combined weight; there is room enough for the both of them to scale it at once.

“Ready?” She asks him.

Ryan nods, getting his bearings for running. “Ready.”

And then they are off.

Yaz barely thinks about it, as she pelts across the grass, having gone so long now without the dogs catching her that she does not expect their approach. But as she nears the trellis, Ryan close behind her, she hears that woofing and crying, and it jolts her because for the first time the dogs sound _normal,_ like regular mutts, not speaking her insecurities to her in their howls. They charge around the corner of the Mansion, and Ryan comes to a halt.

“Ryan! Come on!” Yaz calls as she reaches the trellis, putting her hands to it, hoisting a leg up to push herself up. Ryan is frozen, though, in fear, as the dogs come careening towards him.

“Yaz! How are they doing that?” He asks her desperately, flinching a little. Yaz realises, then, that the dogs are not chasing her, but fresh blood, going after Ryan, and from his reaction, they are speaking his insecurities to him, too.

“Ryan, come on!” Yaz says, reaching back to pull at his arm, forcing him into action. Ryan shakes himself, and with wide eyes scrambles to the trellis, panicking, Yaz can see, in the shaking of his hands, as he lines himself up to begin to climb, getting his coordination into gear. Yaz scrambles ahead, planning on being able to help Ryan out and pull him up if she reaches the roof first, and hits the roof in record time, bracing herself with certain feet against the tiles.

“Ryan! Here!” Yaz calls, fear bitter in the back of her throat as she sees the dogs leaping and jumping, grabbing at Ryan’s ankles. Ryan has raw fear in his eyes, but Yaz is so incredibly proud of him as he manages to work his way up, concentrating hard on his coordination until Yaz can grab his arm and help him onto the roof.

He falls back against the tiles, breathing heavy, chest heaving. Yaz peers down at the dogs to see them still whimpering, looking up, but as scheduled, they begin to treat, slinking away now Ryan is out their reach.

“You weren’t kidding!” Ryan says, looking shaken, and Yaz winces.

“No. I wasn’t. Sorry.” She says.

He shakes away her apology, but he looks unsure as he turns to her and says, “Yaz? What kind of a place _is_ this?”

“I don’t know, but I do know we need to move now before the crows come. They’re worse than the dogs.” Yaz says, ushering him to the far side of the roof, near the wall, to where she can already see T’s window, a beacon of hope. Her stomach twists to note there is warm light glinting behind the window, but she pushes that away and instead focuses on getting them towards safety.

Yaz can hear the crows cawing in the near-distance, and she moves quicker, Ryan finding the tiles easier to manage than the trellis, especially where they have the wall to push off against and increase their speed, crawling along behind her, his long legs near up to his chin. When Yaz reaches T’s window, it is shut, and she panics for a moment, hearing wings in the air, but when she pushes it up with her fingertips, it rises.

She thanks her lucky stars and makes quick work of climbing through, barely sparing the dark room a glance as she turns to help haul Ryan in just as the crows come swooping in. They hit the window as she slams it down, and Ryan falls back on the ground, breathing heavily, muttering a curse under his breath. Success. They have done it!

“Nice one, Ry!” She says to him, before turning with delight to greet T.

Her face falls.

What hits her first is the gaping hole in the room where dozens and dozens of books had resided in their ranks in the bookcases, where they had piled on the chaise longue. They are gone, now, and the room feels desolate for their loss. With the dark, no candles lit, Yaz feels terror trail down her spine, but what scares her the most is…

“T!”

She rushes towards the woman laid in a heap on the floor, limbs curled up into herself, head cushioned on an arm, hair covering her face. She is shaking, Yaz can see, the fire long dead in the hearth, only ashes, a heap of ashes, more than there would be for the logs. With sudden nausea, Yaz realises it is the remnants of books which make up those ashes. Yaz crouches down by her, completely forgetting about Ryan, and puts a gentle hand to T’s arm.

“T?” She calls, leaning in closer. The other woman does not reply, and Yaz carefully reaches to push her hair out of her face.

T’s face is pale, and her eyes are red, and they blink rapidly as she rouses, looking Yaz’s way. When she notices the other woman, they widen. “Yaz?”

“Hey, what’s up?” Yaz asks her. “What’s… what’s happened?”

“They took them away.” T replies, tone low and flat.

“Oh, T…” Yaz says, running her thumb over T’s cheek, wiping away a solitary tear.

“I tried to go outside, I wanted to show you I could.” T says, and her breath shudders out of her. “I was wrong, it was wrong, I shouldn’t…. I _can’t._ ”

“It’s okay, I’m so proud of you.” Yaz assures her, her heart breaking and then melting together again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry they did this to you.”

T shakes her head but does not speak again, crying silently. Yaz rubs at her arm; her skin is cool to the touch, and Yaz wonders how long T has been lying here.

“Come on.” She says. “Let’s get you up off the floor. I’ll start a fire.”

T nods and allows Yaz to help her into an upright position. She runs a hand through her hair, sniffing, her eyes glancing up at the room around her, the darkness. That is not the thing that makes her tense, however. It is the figure stood near the window, caught in the shadows, towering over her, and she shuffles backwards, eyes wide. Yaz turns, and grimaces. She has forgotten about Ryan.

“T, this is my friend Ryan.” Yaz says. “He were curious about the mansion, so I invited him. Hope you don’t mind.”

“He shouldn’t be here.” T says, still staring in trepidation at Ryan, staring as if looking for something, or recognising him.

“If there’s any trouble, he can leave quickly, he’s got long legs.” Yaz tries to joke, deciding to light the candles in the room to provide light, knowing that will be a good starting place. She leaves T on the floor, the other woman seemingly stuck to the floorboards, making quick work of striking a match and lighting the first candle which rests on the bedside table. She picks it up. “Or he can go now if you want?”

Ryan looks at her with annoyance at that but Yaz ignores him, instead watching the woman on the floor as she moves around the room, lighting the candles. Warm light begins to seep into the room, and they can all see each other a little better.

“I don’t…” T says, and then, as Yaz lights the candelabra by Ryan, casting him into clear light, her eyes widen and she shoots off the floor back slamming into the wall, knocking at one of the paintings so that is swings. “No!”

“T?” Yaz asks, concern in her tone. She places the candle back on the bedside table and makes her way across the room to the other woman, who is shaking her head, mouth agape. Obviously she has had a hard day, and Yaz does not know what it is that is making her fear tantamount, but she places her hand comfortingly on T’s shoulder, trying desperately to catch the other woman’s eye. “What is it? What’s wrong.”

“You can’t be here, you can’t…. oh stars! You’re’ not real, you’re not real! She says, pointing a finger accusingly at Ryan. The man is wide eyed and alarmed, raising his hands in placation.

“Yaz, what’s…” He asks her, trailing off with a shake of his head. Yaz shakes hers back, at a loss.

“I don’t…. T, I know Ryan can’t be here, but he is real, I promise you that.” Yaz assures her, more than a little concerned.

“How is this… how is this possible?” T asks her, with more clarity this time as she turns to Yaz with desperate eyes. “I thought… I thought…”

“T?” Yaz asks as the other woman moves quickly past her, leaping for the bed, pulling aside cushion and pillows, throwing them to the floor. One hits Ryan, who holds it in his hands. He shares an alarmed look with Yaz. T makes an ‘aha!’ sound and pulls something from the sheets, coming back with one of her notebooks. She opens it to a certain page, staring down at it and then back at Ryan and then to Yaz and then back to the notebook. Her face crumples with confusion.

“How is this possible?!”

“What is it?” Yaz asks, stepping towards her and peering over her shoulder.

The notebook is open on two pages littered with illustrations, roughly hewn from lead. There are the strangest things, things Yaz barely takes in, however, as she centres on what catches her attention- her own face, staring up at her with kind eyes and long trailing hair. Her gaze follows to where T’s finger is pointing, and her eyes widen and that feeling in her core pulses within her, and for the first time Yaz feels sick for it, does not understand why is rears its head.

Ryan’s face is also there, a small awkward smirk and warm eyes looking up at her, and next to him his grandad, Graham, wrinkled face caught in kindness. Yaz gapes, barely conceiving what she is seeing. She looks to T, seeing the woman staring at Ryan, tears glistening in her eyes. She looks to Yaz, eyes desperate, inconsolable grief in them

“I am mad, aren’t I?” She asks Yaz. Her breathing is getting more ragged, panic setting in, the shaking of her hands meaning she drops the notebook. As Yaz steers her towards the bed, thinking it best she sits down, Ryan swoops in and plucks it from the carpet, inspecting the pages. His own eyes widen. “I’m really, really mad.”

“No, T, you’re not mad.” Yaz says, sitting down beside her, taking the other woman’s hands in her own. She barely understands the situation herself, but everything here is wrapped in mystery and whilst the strange feeling had sickened her a moment ago she now harnesses it to know that T truly is not mad; the situation is mad, in the sense that it is beyond anything Yaz would have imagined, but this woman is not insane. She is just a piece in the game being played, as Yaz thinks they might all be, for some reason, a piece which is played with, abused, but has not yet broken, is _not_ broken.

“This is all just in my head, isn’t it?” She asks Yaz, distraught. “You’re not really here, are you? You couldn’t be, you couldn’t….”

“T, no, no that’s not true.” Yaz says firmly. She tightens her grip on the other woman’s hands. “Feel that? That’s real.”

T shakes her head, still unsure, so scared. Oh, what Yaz wouldn’t do to be able to wipe that fear off of her face. There is something she might do, to convince T she is real, but with Ryan here, she is not going to go to those lengths. Instead, she tightens her grip, and pulls T’s hand towards her chest, placing it over her heart. “Feel that? That’s my heart beating, T. That’s as real as anything.”

T does feel, chest heaving as her own heart pounds away, face creased in concentration. She blinks once, twice, licks her lips, that hope glimmering through once again, gold in quartz. It is fragile, though, prisoner to indecision and fear, and she shakes her head, looking at Yaz with desperation. “Yaz, I don’t- I don’t understand.”

Yaz fights the impulse to say _neither do I,_ and instead looks to Ryan, gesturing to him with her head. He looks at her with apprehension. “Ryan, get over here!” She says with a hiss, and he scuttles over, notebook still in his hands. He crouches beside the bed.

“T?” Yaz says, turning back to the other woman. “This is Ryan, and he’s as real as anything. Trust me, I’ve had to lug his lanky ass home from the pub one too many times when he’s overdone it.”

Ryan tuts at that, and Yaz smiles, desperately trying to get him on side even as she can see the uncertainty in his gaze as he looks at T. She nudges at T’s shoulder. “Go on.” She says. “He’s there, he’s real, I promise you we’re _real._ ”

T looks at Ryan, usure, and Ryan looks back at her unsure, but at Yaz’s glare he offers T a small smile. “Hi. Heard lots about you.”

T sniffs and very slowly she raises her hand and places it on Ryan’s shoulder. She winces before she does, as if expecting her hold to go through him, but when she meets a solid body, the slick fabric of Ryan’s coat, her eyes widen and her grip increases. With one hand on Ryan’s shoulder and another over Yaz’s heart, Yaz can see the woman beginning to believe, relief taking over her panic. Hope in her eyes. Sunlight glimmering.

“Yaz.” She says, gaze still on Ryan. “You-you’re really real.”

Yaz smiles, her own relief like cool spring waters on a sunny day. “Yes, T, ‘course we are.”

“Ryan…” T says, a slight frown on her face, looking over the man. “You… you’re the one with dyspraxia.”

“Oh, man, Yaz, you tell everyone!” Ryan protests.

“No I don’t!” Yaz protests, slightly offended. “And I only told T to sing your praises, telling her how brave you are.”

“Oh, right.” Ryan says, mollified.

“I dream about you,” T says, voice faraway. Her eyes stray to the notebook. “Both of you…. these strange dreams.”

“I think there’s something very strange at play here, T,” Yaz says honestly. “First the ghost, now this, but I promise you, you are _not_ mad.”

“I didn’t- I didn’t think you were real, at first.” T admits, and shock travels through Yaz like electricity. “I thought I were making you up ‘cause I’d seen your face so many times in my dreams, drawn it on paper to commit it to memory.”

“I’m real.” Yaz whispers, leaning in, and T presses her face into Yaz’s shoulder, letting go of Ryan, who immediately stands and walks back a few paces, uncomfortable. Yaz puts her arm around the other woman, resting her chin on the top of her head. “It’s this house that is mad. None of it makes sense.”

Yaz would get T out of here immediately if she could, but it is not that simple. The woman’s admittance of an attempt to step outside has filled her with pride and hope that they are moving in the right direction, but she worries that the harsh punishment the woman has received from her ‘minders’ has set her progress back. That in itself makes Yaz want to get her out even more, but they are stuck, comfort the only thing she can give, an anchor, harbouring her so she does not get washed away, drowning in her sorrow and fears of madness.

“It’s for my own good.” T mumbles into Yaz’s shoulder. “This house, it’s for my own good.”

“I don’t think it is.” Yaz murmurs back, meeting Ryan’s eye. The man looks uncomfortable. He gestures at Yaz with his head, wanting to speak to her, and Yaz glances between him and T. “T? I’m just going to talk to Ryan for a second.”

The other woman nods and removes her head from Yaz’s shoulder, a cold breeze hitting the skin of Yaz’s neck in her wake. The air is chilly in here. Yaz has an idea. “Actually, how about you light a fire? And then we can get sorted and comfortable?”

T nods, giving her a brief smile, eyes sad and tired, and slides off the bed, moving stiffly to the fireplace and bending down. She hesitates for a moment before she begins to flatten the ash and build a new fire. Yaz moves over to Ryan, who pulls her to the side, out of T’s hearing range.

“Yaz, I don’t like this, not one bit.” He admits.

Yaz frowns. “I know, it is…. odd. But this house _is_ odd, Ryan, that’s what you’ve got to understand. It’s not her fault.”

“I don’t know, Yaz, I feel like there’s more to this, more to her.” He glances over to T in suspicion. Yaz hates it. “I think we should leave.”

“What? No, I’m not leaving her now!” Yaz hisses, trying to keep her voice down.

“Well I am.” Ryan says, and then he falters, looking a little bashful. “Yaz, I’m sorry, I know you want me to trust her, and she seems nice, but… knowing our faces? Knowing _Graham’s_ face? We’re one thing but _Graham-”_

“She’s not to blame, you’ve seen what these minders have done to her!” Yaz says, gesturing to the empty bookcases. “It’s fishy, but it’s not T, she’s not doing it on purpose.”

“But she’s not okay, is she? She’s… she seems a bit unpredictable.” Ryan says, skirting the word ‘dangerous’ narrowly, but Yaz feels anger in her gut and she seethes, glaring at him.

“And the best thing for her is reassurance!” She bites back, but she can tell she will not convince him, has lost the battle. Ryan has taken this all in his stride, as he always does with everything that comes at him, ever since his mum died suddenly and he had to grow up fast, but she can see he is warring with himself over how unpredictable all this is, at how he does not know how to protect himself, protect them all, to wonder whether someone Yaz wants to protect might turn around and put them in more danger…

“Yaz, I’m sorry, but… I’m going.” He says, already moving towards the window. “Just… be careful, please? I know you will be, but…. You’re my mate.”

Yaz shoots him a small smile, feeling a little bashful about her anger. “’Course, you know me!”

“Should I wait for you?” Ryan asks.

Yaz shakes her head. “No, you head on home, I might stay the night…”

Ryan mouth pinches together at that, but he does not protest further, instead moving to the window and pulling up the latch. He turns back to Yaz. “These bleedin’ animals… they’re not going to attack me again, are they?”

Yaz shakes her head. “No, you should be fine. Just… be quick.”

Ryan nods, sliding the window upwards. T, from her position by the fire, infantile flames flickering away, looks up at the sound. “Oh, are you going?”

“Yeah, it were nice to meet ya, just… got to get back to me granda- I mean Graham.” Ryan says, and he waves awkwardly at T. Yaz herself feels a little uncomfortable, Ryan has practically gone as soon as he came, and she can tell T knows this, too, knows she has probably spooked the man.

“Be safe, Ryan!” She says to him as he slips out of the window. She pulls it closed after him, and he looks at her from behind the glass, eyes wide, full of concern. She shoots him a reassuring smile before turning away.

She lets out a sigh, looking across to T, who is staring at the fire, eyes faraway. Yaz steps nearer, noting the trembling in the other woman’s shoulders. “You okay?”

“Yaz….” T says, rising and turning from the fire to face Yaz, fresh tears in her eyes. Ah. It seems she had been holding it a little more together whilst Ryan was here than she was actually feeling. Guilt lances through Yaz.

“I’m sorry I brought him here.” She says.

“S’alright.” T says. “It was me who weirded him out.”

“No, no, Ryan’s just… cautious.” Yaz tries to reassure, but she can see it has not done much. She steps forwards, hand moving to T’s arm and adds, “He’ll be cautious enough to know not to tell anyone ‘bout this.”

T nods, letting out a long, shaky breath. Then she promptly begins to sob.

Yaz takes her in her arms, making quiet shushing noises as she sways the to and fro, running her hands up and down T’s back.

“I let you down, Yaz. I let you down.” T sobs into her hair.

“No you haven’t. I’m so proud of you!” Yaz reassures her. “And you don’t owe me anything, you know, nothing at all. I think you’re amazing as it is.” At T’s disbelieving sob she adds, “I _do._ ”

“You are, too, you’re so amazing.” T says, breath warm in Yaz’s ear. Yaz squeezes her tighter.

They break away after a moment, T swiping at her eyes. Yaz runs her hands up and down her arms, pleased she feel warmer, looks softer in the warm glow of the fire.

“Sometimes, I think I don’t know _what’s_ real.” T confesses, eyes on the floor, fingers swiping at those tears. In this house, Yaz can sympathise fully with that.

“That’s okay. And I’m sorry if I’ve contributed to that in anyway, with all I’ve been saying about the outside and-” Yaz says, guilt curling up inside her, but T interrupts her.

“No, Yaz, no, you’re… you’ve been…. Brilliant, more than I could ever…” She smiles softly as something occurs to her. She looks to Yaz, dewy autumnal colours in her eyes. “More than I could have imagined. Maybe that should have been my first clue.”

Yaz smiles and is heartened when T returns it. She can feel the storm beginning to calm, sea no longer sloshing over the side of the boat, keeping them steady on the waters.

“Come on.” She says. “How about you get some fresh clothes on and we climb into bed?” 

* * *

It is later, the fire crackling calmly away, and both women are soft and warm as they lie side by side in the bed, facing each other, sheets near pulled up over their faces. T is in a clean nightgown, her heather-grey dressing gown over that, extra layers keeping her warm, Yaz in her shirt and borrowed pyjama bottoms once more. The other woman is considerably calmer, warmed by the fire and the solid presence of Yaz’s body beside her, their fingers entwined. Yaz smiles her, considering a question on her mind.

“What would you want your life to be like?” Yaz asks her, settling deeper into her pillow. “On the outside. You said you wanted to be a Doctor, but that doesn’t have to be _it._ What would you want to do?”

T considers this. “Travel.” She says with a hesitant smile, which only grows when Yaz beams back broadly. “See the beautiful landscapes. Never be in one place all the time. I’d have a travelling home. A portable one!”

She laughs, and Yaz laughs, too, both women giggling into the quiet. When it dies down, T’s eyes are soft as she considers Yaz. “I wouldn’t want to be alone, though.”

“Oh?”

“No,” T shakes her head. “I’d want to travel with someone. A friend.”

“Who would that be?” Yaz asks, voice hopeful.

“You.” T replies. “Obviously. You’re the only friend I’ve got.” She hesitates, then, and her fingers trace very carefully over Yaz’s under the covers. “But not just because of that. But because you’re…. you. You’re amazing.”

“You are, too.” Yaz says, her own fingers picking up T’s and starting to play with them. “You’re like the best person I’ve ever met.”

T’s eyes widen, insecurity running sharp through them like a dagger, but Yaz is quick on its heels, and she chases it away, shuffling closer, eyes moving to T’s lips. Her own brush against T’s. “Promise.” She whispers, and then very carefully she presses her lips against the other woman’s.

T stiffens for a moment with surprise, but then she melts, and her lips are softening and opening against Yaz’s. The kiss is long, languid, the shining sun which beams down on T’s tentative hope, the gold trapped in quartz, breaking free. Yaz is not sure she breathes for minutes as they soak each other in, find closeness in such an intimate sense. It is more than Yaz could ever have imagined, and it sings with deeper meaning, the feeling in her core satisfied, the want running longer than the time she and T have known each other; as if it was always meant to be this way.

When they finally do break apart, both of them are breathless, but they smile at each other with a newfound joy. T’s pupils are dilated, high on her desire for Yaz.

“Yaz…” She says. “You’re so amazing.”

“And you’re so alive.” Yaz replies, pressing forwards, putting into the kiss her love and adoration and admiration for this woman.

Trailing hands follow their kisses, trailing over limbs, skating over stomachs and narrowly dodging the places they most desperately want to touch, tentative in the newness of this, no matter how natural it feels. Their kisses deepen as their desire for each other settles and matures like fine wine, and Yaz feels a hand creep under her shirt, trailing upwards, but the hand stops before it goes any further.

“Yaz.” T says, voice high with arousal, breathy. “I’ve never done anything like this…”

“It’s alright, we can go slow.” Yaz reassures her. “We don’t have to do anything-”

“No, I don’t want- I don’t want to stop, not if you don’t want to.” T interrupts her.

“Definitely not.” Yaz says with a smile, coquettish, a cheekiness they have not ever really interacted with, but T returns her smile with a tentative one of her own, and it feels so _right._

Yaz leads them in this dance, guiding hands, using her own, bringing the most delightful sounds from T, sounds of a joy, a bliss she does not think the woman has experienced. To know that she, _Yaz,_ has been why she is experiencing them… it makes her own pleasure even better.

After, when they are hot and sweaty, clothes long discarded on the floor, curled up in each other’s bodies, T pressing soft kisses to Yaz’s shoulder, Yaz cannot say she has ever felt so contended, the feeling in her core sated, her desire, her affection for T sated. Her…. Love.

She sucks in a shaky breath as she realises that all she has felt, the deep depths to which her feelings go, diving deep below the surface, deeper than even Yaz herself can know, as supernatural as everything else in this house, this moment, this _time…_ is love. Love for T. Loving T. That is all she ever wants to do.

“Imagine.” She says to the other woman, lashes fluttering against her cheek as Yaz presses kisses to her skin. “If we could travel amongst the stars. You said that to me, the first time we met, that you wanted to travel among those stars. I want to come with you.”

“Of course.” T replies, mouth trailing up to Yaz’s neck. “I would never go without you.” 

* * *

“You know, you really are so incredibly brave.” Yaz remarks a little later, once they have redressed, the dying fire necessitating the need for clothing as the room had grown colder. “More than you know.”

“I’m not.” T replies, playing with Yaz’s fingers, the response ingrained in her, the belief ingrained in her. They lie on their sides facing each other again, soaking each other in. She looks at Yaz, looks into her eyes. “But you make me feel like maybe I could be. One day.”

“One day.” Yaz remarks, pulling at T’s fingers until their hands are clasped together. An idea comes to her, fuelled by her love, knowing it is a true love, of care and adoration, not a false love of lies and abuse; this idea could shove that false love in the givers’ face, show them that this woman who Yaz loves is far more than they could ever proscribe her as. “How about… that day be today? Now?”

T looks unsure, looking up at Yaz, her kisses stopping. “Oh, Yaz, I don’t know-”

“I’d never force you but think how good you’ll feel if you just made that step, like you were going to do earlier. I’ll be there, encouraging you, with you every step, with you _for_ that step.” Yaz says, and T shuffle so she is propped up on her arm and can look at Yaz properly, small furrow in her brow. “What we just did, everything we’ve done together… T, that’s love. That’s care.”

T eyes widen, and her mouth parting slightly. “… Love?”

Yaz smiles, leaning up on her own elbows so that their faces are mere inches from each other. “Yeah, love. I love you, T.”

T gasps, eyes widening even further. Her bottom lip trembles, and then she is darting forward, pressing her mouth to Yaz’s, kissing her desperately, gratefully. When they break apart she smiles, tears in her eyes, happy tears, for the first time. “I love you, Yaz. More than the stars I love you.”

Yaz has never felt such joy as this. Their feelings have grown into a supernova. She has nurtured a flower as it has grown and bloomed. It shines like the constellations in the sky, more powerful than the ghost, than the minders, than the Mansion itself.

“I want to do it.” T says when they break apart. “Now.”

“Yeah?” Yaz asks her with a smile, and she giggles when the woman displays a newfound confidence which suits her, nodding and pressing a quick, almost cavalier kiss to Yaz’s lips, leaning over her to grab for something from the bedside table. She pushes back with Yaz’s torch in her hand, letting out a nervous and yet excited breath.

They gather themselves, T shucking on her dressing gown. They need to be quiet; the hour is late. When T glances at the clock and notices this, she tenses a little, looking uncertain. Yaz knows why, but she does not mention her meeting with the ghost, not plainly. Instead she says, “If we meet the ghost, you have the torch.”

“I have the torch…” T mutters, looking down at the object. It looks strange against her clothing, the interior of the room, but it suits her perfectly. She looks up at Yaz, looking surer. She switches the torch on. “Let’s go.”

They creep quietly, hand in hand, along the corridor, down the sweeping staircase, across the hallway and into the smaller drawing room, T coming face to face with those glass doors once again. They meet no ghost, they meet no one, the house deathly quiet. She lets out a long, shaky breath, turning off the torch and pocketing it in her dressing gown.

Yaz squeezes her hand. “It’s just one step.”

“Just one step.” T murmurs. Her hand twitches in Yaz’s, and Yaz lets her go. She should do this alone. Although, she is not wholly alone, Yaz is here. Yaz will ensure she is never wholly alone from this point onward.

T’s hand wraps around the handle, knuckles white her grip is so tight. She lets out another long breath, pushes her shoulders back, and presses down.

“Well. This _is_ a surprise.”

Yaz whirls to see a figure stood in the doorway, framed by dull candlelight, a silhouette, their features indistinguishable. The light is colder, the candles casting no warmth. Yaz shivers, and as the figure steps forward that feeling in her core goes off like an alarm, warning her. Her heart begins to race.

“No…” T whispers, hand still wrapped around the handle, face as white as a sheet. As a ghost.

“Darling, T…” The figure says, strutting forwards. “If I had known your rebellious streak was a little more persistent than I believed it to be I would have done so much more to make you suffer.”

T’s eyes widen, and Yaz sees her hand begin to shake.

“As it was, we decided on a gilded cage. More sophisticated, more…. Fun.” The figure says, and Yaz finally gets a proper look at her face as the moonlight outside beams across it. It is thin, wrinkled with age, softer than Yaz might have expected, but Yaz knows that monsters come in all shapes and sizes. “With a little tampering it didn’t take much for you to think the outside terrifying, too scary for you, weak as you are… a little tampering, a little conditioning… you were perfect. Perfect little doll.”

T’s breathing is harsh, and Yaz steps towards her as the figure advances, protecting her with her body. The figure does not acknowledge Yaz, although she must know she is there.

“But you’ve spoilt that perfection, become too tainted… and you’ve made a friend!” She says with feigned delight, and finally she turns to Yaz, sets cold, dead eyes on her. Yaz stands her ground, anger carried forward by love running through her. “Although I have no idea how. It is no matter.”

“What you’ve done to her, it’s disgusting.” Yaz says, spitting in the figure’s face. They reel back, surprised, but stiff-backed. Yaz feels T’s hand grabbing for hers. She takes it, squeezes it tightly.

“Yaz, don’t, please don’t….”

The figure smirks. “You weren’t going mad after all, all that simpering for a Yaz.” They look to Yaz, looking her up and down, evaluating her. When she speaks, she speaks to T. “She made it back to you. I would have thought the precautions we put in place would have been enough, but it seems I underestimated this particular human.”

_Made it back?_

“I don’t understand.” T says, and the figure laughs.

“No, you wouldn’t. I made it that way. This really is so terribly funny. I almost wish you knew why.”

Yaz, confused, terrified, and yet more importantly angry, so angry for T, steps forward again, getting right in the figure’s face. “What you’ve done is inhumane!”

The figure laughs, a sound which cracks the air, near cracks the glass in the doors. And it cracks T’s resolve too, and she begins to shake her head, pleading under her breath, apologising. That sound cracks Yaz in its turn.

Two more figures appear, emerging from shadow until they are fully formed in the moonlight. One has spiky features, the other a heavy brow, an ancient sort of dominance to them as they tower over them, coming to stand shoulder to shoulder with the first figure. The figure quiets her laughter and looks at Yaz with a patronising expression. “Oh, my dear, that really does not matter. You see, the thing is, I am not human.”

Yaz barely has time to gape, to consider what has been said, how it seems to make sense to her, deep down in her core, in the images of the basement, before she is being grabbed by Pointy and Headmaster, fighting desperately, but their grip is unnaturally strong.

“No, Yaz!” T cries, her face distraught, but Yaz is so proud in that moment when anger creases her features and she makes for the figure, hands raised to push, to fight back, perhaps for the first time so directly. The figure makes quick work of grabbing her wrist, barely blinking an eye as she twists them harshly in a tight grip. T cries out, buckling a bit, but she keeps fighting.

“Take her to the lab. We’ll feast on her and dump her body outside the grounds.” The figure demands, and cold terror lances through Yaz, and she fights even more. Pointy and Headmaster stay firm.

“NO! Yaz!” T screams, fighting so desperately against the figure. Yaz can see they are struggling, even as she begins to get pulled towards the doors, turning away from T.

She glances back, and she meets T’s eye, for just a moment, and in that moment there is a sudden stillness granted to them, and in that stillness, Yaz mouths to her the most precious words she will ever say, perhaps her last ever words; if they are, then she will die happy in that knowledge. “I love you.”

And then she is being dragged from the room, T’s cries calling out behind her.

“No! Yaz!” T cries, scrambling, bare feet sliding on the carpet so much it burns her skin. Tecteun sighs, pulling her up by the wrists, looking her in the eye with her own swimming with disgust and exasperation.

“Should have known you’d be slippery, even when you’re not yourself.”

T blinks, breathing heavy. “I don’t- what-”

“Still, it’s no matter.” Tecteun says. “Soon you’ll be dead. Soon this whole planet will be dead.”

“I don’t understand! I don’t understand!” T cries, and looks the woman who she had sought a sick kind of comfort in, her only solace before Yaz had come along, one she now realises was dangerous, more dangerous than the outside she had warned T against, keeping her subdued, keeping her scared. Scared of the world. Scared of her, although T is only realising that now.

“And you never will, dearest.” Tecteun says, and there is a sudden, sharp softness to the way she strokes T’s cheek, hand moving upwards, finger at her temple, and then-

T’s vision falters, black streaks painted across it, and she cannot help but fall into Tecteun’s arms. She feels like she should do more, be able to do something more but…. She cannot remember. She cannot remember her own name. She cannot remember how old she is, or how long she has been living in this house. All she can remember is Yaz. Yaz’s face peering at her through the window, Yaz’s face engraved in lead on paper, Yaz’s face smiling at her when T told her she loved her. Yaz’s face as she told T that she loved _her._ Whoever she is. “No, no…”

Tecteun shushes her, enfolding her in her arms and slowly bringing them both down to the floor, T in her arms, helpless against the pull of unconsciousness as her eyes close, her head dropping limply against Tecteun’s arms. Her last thought is of Yaz.

“Shush now, _dearest._ ” ‘Tecteun’ says, smile on their face, excitement lapping at their fingertips as they run them across T’s face, the person they created, the doll they tried to shape. At their mercy. “There is nothing you can do to stop us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed, we're reaching the climax of this mystery.... I hope it's not disappointing!
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1


	6. The Shed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies this is a day late. I've not been feeling too well and also I'm quite nervous about this chapter so I was stalling a bit. I hope you like it.

When Yaz wakes, someone is soothing her brow with a wet cloth.

She thinks, for a moment, that it might be T, but the room she is in smells different from T’s room, there is no fire crackling and no clock ticking. There is, however, the muted sound of a radio, and Yaz frowns, wondering how she got to where there this a radio, and who exactly is sponging her brow….

Her eyes flicker open, take in the warm light of a lamp, the soft colours of the wallpaper, the subtle things that tell Yaz she is back in the ‘outside’, in her own time. She makes an aborted groaning sound as the pounding in her head, which feels as if it has been put through a blender, and her eyes roam around the room to rest on the figure leaning over her, attending to her, their eyes wide and concerned.

Ryan.

“Yaz, mate, I’ve been so worried!” Ryan says with deep relief. He pulls back, sitting in the chair Yaz can see he has dragged from the table to where she is lain out on the sofa, soft blanket covering her, bare feet poking out the end.

“What- what happened?” she asks, mouth dry, sitting herself up ever so slowly. Her head swims, and she blinks away the dizziness, bracing herself with one hand on the sofa arm. As she reorients, so does her memory, and she startles, gasping as she remembers T, caught in her captors’ hands, herself between the other two, the threats spoken. “Ryan! T! She’s not safe!”

“Woah, Yaz, hang on a second!” Ryan says, raising his hands. Another figures steps into the room, alerted by Yaz’s exclamation, tea towel in his hand, brow furrowed in concern. He smiles when he sees Yaz awake, however.

“Yaz, love!” graham exclaims. “It’s good to see you awake! How you feeling?”

“Fine, I think, just a bit… confused.” Yaz says. Her panic is still flowing through her veins in burning adrenaline, increasing her heart’s ferocious hammering, but she needs to get her bearings, figure out where to go from here. “How did I get here?”

“I waited, I know you told me not to, but I did.” Ryan says. “I just had a bad feeling ‘bout it all. So I sat in your car. Hours later, I see these figures coming down the long drive with you in between them, unconscious. They opened the gates and dropped you to the ground. I had to wait for them to retreat but when they did I brought you straight here. You’ve been out for about forty-five minutes, now.”

 _Okay, good, that is not as long as it could have been_ , Yaz thinks. She could still be in time before something… whatever it is, happens.

“Yaz, what happened?” Ryan asks her, and Yaz glances between the two men, knowing by now Ryan has surely filled Graham in, and begins to explain, as best she can, omitting some more intimate details, about all that has happened this night. _This night._ Stars, it feels like days since she and T were in the bedroom together.

“I don’t know what any of it meant, but it didn’t sound good, it didn’t sound right.” Yaz says, accepting the glass of water Graham hands her, the man having popped out into the kitchen after Yaz had finished her tale with a sore throat. She takes a sip. “But it all adds up. Or rather, it doesn’t. the strange dogs and the birds, the ghost, those _minders,_ what they were saying, about being inhuman…. It reeks of something supernatural.”

“Good lord.” Graham mutters, shaking his head. Ryan nods. He has seen it himself.

“The way she knew us, knew our faces.” He adds to Yaz’s tale, and Yaz bites her tongue against the anger which sits, ready to spit, in the back of her throat. He is not accusing T of anything: it is simply another oddity to add to their tally. Something occurs to Yaz then, remembrance springing forth.

“The woman, she said that I’d ‘made it back’ to T.” Yaz says. “As if we had already met. As if we had already known each other…”

“How’s that possible?” Ryan asks.

Yaz shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this, but all I know is that we need to help her. Now. I’ve talked too long already. She’s in danger.”

She stands cautiously, head still a little fuzzy, but adrenaline fuels her. She has no idea what has been done to her, but she does not feel too bad for it, not when she considers that they had been planning to kill her. Nausea swirls in her stomach at the thought.

“What do you suggest we do, Yaz?” Ryan asks. “We have no idea what we’re dealing with.”

“I know, I know.” Yaz says. She braces her feet against the ground, pulling her shoulders back, gathering her strength. Her love for T sits like a fierce dragon, curled inside her, ready to burn any to the ground who dare to harm her. She looks to the two men, the two men she knows, closely, even though she cannot remember why. “But we’re brave, and it’s our choice to help her, to use our bravery for good. And that can only be a positive, right?”

“Right.” Graham says in agreement, nodding approvingly. Ryan purses his lips together, still looking uncertain, but Yaz can see he understands her point.

“Okay, I think we should bring some weapons, just in case.” Yaz says.

“Oh, right, yeah, let me get my stun gun.” Graham jokes.

“A crowbar, golf club, anything like that will do.” Yaz says, secretly wishing she did have her stun gun- _taser-_ from work. Graham nods, moving out into the hall, muttering something about a cricket bat. Ryan looks to Yaz with a raw honesty in his eyes.

“You sure about this Yaz?”

This is the concern of one friend for another, trusting them, trusting their judgement, willing to follow them into the fray even if doubt sits within them. Yaz is so grateful for him, for how he is like a brother to her even though she does not know why. She nods.

“Positive.”

Graham comes back into the room, carrying a cricket bat and a golf club. “There’s a crowbar in the shed outside, son, I’m sure of it.” He says to Ryan, who moves off with a passing wink in Yaz’s direction.

“Alright, cockle, don’t you worry.” Graham says to her. He peers down at Yaz’s bare feet. He glances up at her face. “I might have a pair of Grace’s old shoes for you, Yaz. Don’t think you can do much running around with bare feet.” 

* * *

The car pulls up outside the Mansion, coming to a screeching halt. Yaz kills the engine, peering up at the now familiar façade. She is not afraid of it, not now, not when it has become so familiar, even as it holds the unfamiliar.

“Ready?” She asks the two men. They nod at her, Graham catching her eye in the rear-view mirror.

“Ready.”

Yaz pockets her car keys in the borrow jacket of Grace’s, stepping forwards towards those irons gates. She evaluates them, looking properly, realising, for the first time, that they are unlocked. They have possibly been unlocked this whole time. She pushes, and they open easily, no scraping, groaning sound of old metal. Strange, and therefore, normal.

Their journey up the main path towards the house is quiet, the crunching of gravel underfoot their only company; Yaz is on high alert for attack, but no ‘minders’ come out, no dogs or crows attack them. when they reach the house, towering over them, domineering, but to Yaz so easily assailable, now, they pause for a moment, the two men waiting for Yaz’s guidance. She hesitates, waiting for something, although she does not know what.

And then….

The hounds yap and crows caw, except the sounds are not disparate, separate, they are together, and Yaz’s eyes widen as from the corner of the Mansion turn hounds with wings and beaks, mutant animals, creatures of hell.

“My god!” Graham exclaims.

“Run!” Yaz shouts. She leads them away from the frontage, to the side, but she passes by the trellis, the familiar roof and window, and instead to a place she just _knows_ is safe, that has been calling to her, had been the point of interest to a ghost desperate to get T’s attention.

The shed.

“In here!” She calls to the boys as the mutant creatures pound at the ground behind them and cut through the sky above them.

“What?! Yaz, it’s a shed!” Ryan cries, close behind her, Graham trailing a little behind.

“I know!” Yaz replies, “Come on!”

She staggers to a stop by the shed, the rotting wood calling to her to touch, as it had before, and she hesitates a moment, hand hovering over the handle, swearing that the wood feels _warm_ to her palm, before she places her hand against it and pushes the door open.

All three pile through, and the door slams shut behind them, but Yaz does not register this, does not take any of this in, because the moment they enter the shed, it becomes not a shed, but a large room, bigger than it was from the outside, with crystal pillars dark and cold towering over them, surrounding a central console, from which another pillar protrudes. And then, no sooner as Yaz taken all this in and thought, inexplicably, ‘Tardis! Home!’ then her mind is assaulted with an onslaught of memories.

It is as if Yaz is putting on a familiar coat or tasting a familiar flavour. Memories stream back into her consciousness like a fast flowing river, filling her mind with a warmth which travels from both the outside and from her core, the two meeting until recollection is returned to her and she is complete.

Yaz stumbles and nearly falls, grabbing onto one of the crystal pillars to sustain herself. The moment she touches, it the room- no, _ship! This is the Tardis,_ Yaz remembers now- reanimates, coming to life in golden hues and moody blues, comforting, familiar. Yaz gasps.

She remembers.

She remembers everything.

“Oh my stars.” She whispers.

“Hello!” A voice calls, and Yaz startles, leaping away from the crystal pillar as a woman stands very close to her face, eyes rimmed with dark makeup, hair a bird’s nest, dress Victorian in style, or rather, more steampunk. She flickers slightly, not quite there, imbued with the same deep blues as the console room, beaming widely at Yaz. “You’re the pretty one!”

“What?” Yaz asks, voice low and husky under the weight of everything that has just slammed into her like a freight train.

“And you!” The woman says, turning to Ryan, who looks just as blindsided as Yaz, touching the side of his head. “You’re the tall one!”

“Oh, right, and what am I?” Graham grumbles, running a hand over his head, looking peaky. They’ve all been knocked for six.

“You’re…. you’re the sandwiches one, yes! What a great word! _Sand_ wiches!”

“Who are you?” Yaz asks the woman, who turns back to her with delight.

“I’m sexy!”

“Eh?” Graham says.

“I go-” and then inexplicably the woman begins making the ancient wheezing sound which accompanies every new trip in the Tardis.

“No way! You’re the Tardis!” Ryan exclaims. The woman- the Tardis- nods, looking delighted. Ryan gapes, “But you’re a woman!”

“Not quite! This is simply the form I took once when I was transferred into a human body. She was called Idris. You might also call me that.” The Tardis- Idris- _stars_ this is moving fast- says. “And I am so very happy to see you.”

“How- how do we suddenly remember everything?” Yaz asks Idris, heart hammering staccato in her chest.

“When you were captured by the Dessianimo, my thief, she put this framework in place, without those creatures knowing it. They wiped your memories, but their psychic powers are nothing compared to the Timelords and their tech- _moi.”_ She says, putting a hand to her chest and winking. “Your memories, they were transferred to me, so that the moment you re-entered and I was woken, they would be returned to you.”

Yaz blinks, head reeling. Yes, they were captured, she remembers now. _Of course_ she does. Captured by these aliens calling themselves the Dessianimo, bent on using them for their own ends, wanting the Doctor for… something.

“What have they done to her?” Yaz asks Idris. She knows what they have done, and it sits heavy and sick and squirming in her insides, dangerously close to her heart which threatens to break into two. She cannot focus on that yet, she needs more time to get reoriented, understand what has happened, before she can dwell on that.

Idris turns to her with sad eyes, wide in her gaunt face. “They have stolen her. The nerve. My _thief.”_

“What exactly have they done, though?” Ryan asks. He points towards the door, towards the Mansion. “Because she were very different.”

Yaz tries not to flinch at that, at the implication of ‘different’ meaning ‘weak’.

“They had stolen timelord technology, a device called a chameleon arch. Now, I have one of those, and I know how to use it responsibly, but they… oh, well, they thought it’d be easy. It changes a Timelord into a human, you see. Erases their memories, all of them, and makes them into someone new.”

Yaz wants to be sick.

“But… she remembered us, in her own way.” Ryan replies, and Yaz almost hates how composed he sounds, how he is so easily piecing all this together, as if this is easy to take. “She had a notebook, with our faces in it.”

Yaz breathes heavily, that feeling in her core… it surrounds her, it is _her;_ this whole time lying dormant, lying unexplained, whilst she had pushed on and brushed it off and chased what she wanted.

Idris nods, a fond smile on her face. “It does leak through, yes. You see, it is still her, it is still the Doctor. So, new, but not quite. Old face, but not _quite_. Something old, something new, and also something borrowed…. A borrowed face, some borrowed characteristics.”

T’s bravery, her rebellious nature, under all that fear. Her desire for the stars, to travel among then. Yaz swallows. _Oh stars._

“It would have made no sense to her, but it was there, nonetheless.” Idris. And then, she claps her hands together, but it does not make a clapping sound, rather an electrical static sound. “Now, my thief has been stolen, and I want her back.”

At the console, something beeps, and the three humans turn. Idris gestures to the console with her head. “You’ll have to get those, I’m afraid I am not… hmm… fleshy, like you. Pudgy, like you.” She says to Graham.

“Oi!” Graham replies as Yaz moves towards the Tardis to collect the objects. One makes her aching heart sing, just a small tune, in its comforting familiarity: the Doctor’s sonic. The other….

“Why is there a fob watch?” She asks Idris, moving back to where they are gathered nearer the doorway.

“Ah, brilliant!” Idris exclaims, seeing the objects in Yaz’s hands. “You’re going to need these if you’re to save her.”

“Right, well, I get why we need the sonic, but why the fob watch?” Ryan asks, shaking his head in confusion.

“The Dessianimo, they feed on pain. You’ll remember, pretty one, you had to run from those dogs and those birdies? A construct designed to scare people away. They did not want humans coming near their house. Their speciality is pain, but not pain of a physical sort, no, mental pain. They feast on that. Psychic creatures as they are, you see. It’s how they eat.”

Yaz’s eyes widen. She has to wet her lips, her voice hoarse with emotion as she says, “Is that- is that why they kept her locked up in there? Why they kept her scared…” Another thought occurs to her and her hand goes to her mouth. She looks to Idris, distraught, who looks back, just as sorrowful. “Is that why they put paintings on the walls of the outside, the books, the telescope… to keep her longing for something she desperately wanted to see, something she never thought it possible to, because the world was not like that, the stars were out of reach? They were feeding on her pain?”

Idris nods sadly, and Yaz bites her lip to keep from sobbing.

“But, why turn her human and not just… do it on the Doctor?” Ryan questions. “I mean, I know the Doc would have got out of there in five minutes flat, would have been less afraid, but….”

“Would she have been?” Idris questions, an enigmatic question Yaz does not know whether any of them know how to answer, but something niggles at her… something connected to T. To what she _is._ “But excellent question, tall one! And the answer is….” Idris’ face scrunches up in concentration. After a moment she pulls a face and shrugs. “Well, I’m not quite sure _why_ they did this, what their plan is, but what I _can_ tell you is that they needed another method to draw the Doctor’s pain from her. A method that goes beyond physical matter. It’s all psychic, you see, how they work. Their machinery, it’s designed for it. They would need to pull her apart, pull memories from her that even she does not remember that will cause her the most amount of pain.”

“What do you mean, even the memories she does not remember?” Graham asked. “Do you mean when you’re getting on a bit and things start to fall out of your head?”

“I’ll tell her you said that.” Idris warns with raised eyebrows, and Graham raises his hands in supplication.

“I’m just saying-”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Idris says, and her voice is a shade graver than it has been, and it sends a cold shiver down Yaz’s spine. “So many lives, more than even she knows, a secret at the edge of the universe, a small code on the corner of a page in invisible ink. So much more pain is discovered in that code, and these creatures, they know about it, they’ve heard about it. They want more than just the _Doctor’s_ pain… they want all of her pain. _All of her’s_ pain.”

Idris is barely making any sense anymore, and secrets about the Doctor right now are nearly too much for Yaz’s brain, which is still reeling from remembering her existence in the first place. She tries to think of her time in the Mansion, any things she would have missed, that she would now understand, sieving through her memories. Icy sweat trickles down her back. “Oh my…. They’ve got her in some sort of laboratory.”

Three sets of eyes land on her, and Yaz’s hands shake into fists as she explains. “I went exploring once, after they had taken her somewhere and she came back tired and barely there…. They were feeding on her, weren’t they?” She asks Idris, who nods. Yaz shakes herself. Not T, not right now… focus on the Doctor. “It was like a basement, but the ground… it was made out of technology, and in the main room there was this console-thing with a central column…” Now Yaz is saying it, she realises how eerily it looks like the Tardis. “And there was this gold wispy stuff in it. I put my hand to the glass, and it moved to it, it… I think it shocked me.”

“That, pretty one, is the Doctor.” Idris says with a smile. “My poor thief.”

“Did she- she….” Yaz gapes as realisation slams into her, leaving her winded.

“Yaz?” Graham asks in concern, watching her closely.

There are so many thoughts in Yaz’s head. She focusses on the key point. “There was this… this ghost, in the Mansion, T was terrified of it… after I touched that thing- the _Doctor-_ I could see the ghost. Sort of.”

“What?” Ryan asks.

“It was the shape of a woman, made out of dust and air and that gold glowing thing-”

“The Doctor’s consciousness.” Idris says, tone knowing.

Yaz unconsciously points at her, mind very far away, eyes seeing something else entirely. “And she was directing me…. Directing T…. to _you._ ”

“I choose my thieves carefully.” Idris says with a glint in her eye, shrugging. Both men exclaim in surprise. “Like I said, they have psychic powers, but they’re nothing compared to a Timelord’s. My thief must have been getting out when they weren’t looking, weren’t _torturing_ her, to try and give herself up, and you, Yaz, the clue to bring you back to me and therefore back to her.”

Yaz shakes her head slowly, back and forth as her thoughts chase each other back and forth. T…. she had been scared so much, but the thing she had been most scared of was herself. She had not believed herself good enough, thought herself too weak, so she was scared in that sense, but also in _this_ sense…. Scared of the ghost, scared of herself, _her real self,_ Yaz thinks with nausea, without even knowing it.

It conjures to her memory images of the Doctor in these past months, cold looks, closed in, as if she was afraid to let them in, shut off, after everything to do with a maniac called the Master, when they had finally begun to get answers about who she really is. Yaz cannot take the irony… scared of herself, this whole time.

“So that was you calling to me?” She asks Idris, who nods delightedly.

“Yes, you came so close that time I would smack you now if I could, pretty one.” Idris says, and Yaz ducks her head to her feet, ashamed, suddenly, at her ignorance, her want to go on with the exciting enigmatic adventure of seeing T. Idris winces. “Oh dear, I’ve messed up. Words. Not used to them. They all feel so… different in my mouth. Don’t blame yourself, pretty one. My thief would not want you to blame yourself.”

But Yaz already feels as if she is crumbling from the inside, another prospect sitting heavy. She takes a deep breath, pushing tears away, and straightens. They have a job to do. She cannot mess that up, as well. “What do we need to do?”

“That machine they have in their laboratory,” Idris explains. “Very sensitive equipment, especially when dealing with such big a consciousness as the Doctor’s. If one were to overload it by, let’s say, using the sonic….” She shakes her head, smiling mischievously. She sobers. “Once you’ve done that, the whole place is going to blow. You’ll only have a minute at most to get out. But there’s something you need to do as soon as you’ve triggered the overload.” She points to the fob watch. “You can use that to store the Doctor’s consciousness in. Timelord technology, she’ll move towards it like a magnet once she’s free. That will happen once you’ve overloaded.”

“And then what? When we’re out? We just travel with a fob watch from now on?” Graham asks.

Iris tuts. “Oh, sandwich one. You’re forgetting the other part of her… the corporeal part. Her body?”

“You mean T?” Yaz asks, eyes wide, not wanting to believe the implication behind Idris’ words.

Idris nods. “Yes, pretty. When you’re out of there, simply have her open the fob watch, and the Doctor will return to herself.”

“Ah, easy!” Graham says. “Thank goodness for that.”

Easy. So easy, practically. But to Yaz…. It sounds like the hardest thing she will ever have to do.

“You need to get a move on, save her now, before they can complete their plan.” Idris says. She looks between the three of them, sentimental smile on her face. “It was lovely to talk to you, using words. Amazing things, I really wish I could do this more. Well, emergency precautions. I should be going now, but don’t worry, I’ll still be all around you.” She smiles, and her figure is already fading, fading into herself. The Tardis. “Bring me my thief… I should very much like to see her again.”

Ryan waves at Idris as she goes, Yaz watching her without barely seeing her. Idris is near ghost-like now as she fades, but her eyes widen as she remembers something. “Oh, and Ryan, I know you’ve stashed those video games in my library…. I’m not best pleased about that, it itches.” And then she fades.

“Ah.” Ryan says, scratching the back of his head bashfully.

“Well, don’t know about you kids, but my head is currently going through one.” Graham says, rubbing his forehead. He turns to them. “How do we forget about the _Doc?_ ”

“It weren’t us, though, were it? It were those aliens.” Ryan says. “And we need to go and save her, now, I’m not being responsible for facing this machine’s wrath.”

The Tardis makes an irritated bonging sound, and Ryan winces and makes a muttered apology.

“You got those things, Yaz?” Graham asks. “Let’s get a shift on, as the Doc would say. An hour ago, I would never have thought I would said something like that, standing in a timeship!”

Yaz turns away from the men, shaking. “Just… give me a minute.”

Yaz feels both men’s stares on her back as she moves around to the other side of the console, hand coming up to cover her mouth as a sob leaves her, her whole body being wracked. It is like she had been riding a wave, high on her love for T, and now, another has come along, subsumed that one and grown, until Yaz understands, even though she does not want to, had been content to ride that smaller wave and now forced to come to terms with the tumultuous waters which carry her.

T is the Doctor.

Or rather, the Doctor is T.

And T…. She never really existed. Not- not properly… this was all an illusion, a gameplay by these creatures. She was created by them, honed and perfected into what they wanted, only… not quite, for she had been rebellious, in little ways, just like the Doctor. It was certainly Yaz’s friend, the time travelling alien, under there, but that is not what is causing her to cry silently into her hand. No, it is the thought that T is not really anyone, is just a construct, that a woman Yaz loves and so desperately wants to have everything she ever wanted is not even supposed to _exist._ Yaz’s love, it had felt so powerful, as if it could conquer anything, but now…. It has been consumed by the larger wave.

She puts a hand to a crystal pillar, supporting her as she bows her head for just a moment, and she feels warmth underneath her. The Tardis makes a comforting _bong_ sound. Yaz smiles slightly, lips wobbling. It feels familiar. It is what she needs as she realises that in rescuing T… she is also saying goodbye to her.

Yaz is going to have to be brave. Braver than she has ever been. But she made a promise to T, to always be there for her, and she needs to be, now, in more ways than the woman can know.

She straightens, wiping away tears, and turns back to the boys.

“Let’s do this.” 

* * *

When they step out the shed- _Tardis-_ Yaz is shocked to see the Mansion lit from the inside, every single window glinting with warm invitation to them as they stand in the cold night air. Well, almost all; T’s windows remain dark and cold. Yaz hates it.

As they walk closer, they notice that the wide double doors at the front of the house are also wide open, gaping, and they all share a look.

“It’s like they’re waiting for us.” Ryan comments.

“Whatever they did to you, Yaz, it didn’t do much. Maybe they know that. Maybe it was just a luring trap?” Graham suggests.

Yaz swallows. She remembers one of the Dessianimo’s words: _We’ll feast on her and dump her body outside the grounds._ Maybe that was ruse, to scare her, to scare T, but Yaz is not sure….

“Not sure. Come on. I’m not waiting any longer.” Yaz says, striding off towards the house without a backward glance.

No mutant beasts swarm them this time, and as they enter the Mansion the doors swing shut on their own behind them. They are trapped. Inside.

Yaz hands Ryan the fob watch. “Can you take this? I’ll do the sonic bit.”

Ryan nods, and shoots her a smile. He looks a little more bashful, softer, now he understands, now they _all_ understand, this situation. Although, there is one thing they do not understand, and that is why the Dessianimo have invited them in, as if they are gloating, as if they do not care…

“I’m sure they’re in the laboratory. Let’s go.” Yaz says, and they set off. Through the main hallway, past that swooping staircase; Yaz does not look up to see the door to T’s room, too painful to even glance, and through to the back of the house and to the kitchen. When they reach the small door leading to the basement, Yaz pauses with her hand on the doorknob. “You ready?”

“Never better.” Graham says. “Let’s get the Doc back shall we.”

Ryan nods when Yaz turns to him. “Hit it, man.”

And then they descend.

It gets colder, but there is none of the musty smell one would except from dipping deep into the ground. Instead, it smells metallic, and the whole space is filled with a low, dull ringing sound, machinery working hard. As they step down the stairs and into the first chamber, the glinting lights greet them, winking mockingly.

“This way.” Yaz whispers.

She leads the boys through the chamber, turning the corner cautiously to the laboratory, suddenly so terrified what they might find, whether T is alive or dead, whether they are there in time or not…. her heart hammers like a hummingbird. What if they are too late?

“I can hear you lingering so you might as well come out!” A voice calls, familiar to Yaz in its warm sound underlaid with a harsh tone, thunder rumbling before lightning strikes. It makes her teeth grit together in anger, and her nostrils flare. She nods to the boys, wide-eyed but determined, before she swings out from behind the corner, to be greeted with the laboratory.

The console still shines with the golden matter- The _Doctor-_ the lights around it in the walls pulsing with energy, the ringing sound thrumming louder. The light is brighter than it was when Yaz first visited, the Doctor herself near-burning, and Yaz wonders whether it is because she is being pulled and pushed without her own consent, stretched to her limits. The three Dessianimo all stand around, still looking human, a mirage, Yaz now realises, for they flicker slightly at the edges, their movements a little discordant. The figure stands in the centre, smile on her face, even as it flickers it is still menacing. And there, behind her, just to the side of the console, in that chair Yaz had noticed before….

T lies, unmoving, eyes closed, but Yaz cannot make out whether her chest moves up and down as her heart continues to beat, doing the work of two. Her own lurches in her chest.

“Welcome.” The figure tells them, becoming crowded on both sides by her companions. “Welcome, to the end of all things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I suppose in a way it's a good thing this was a day late because now you have a day less to wait for the next chapter after this cliffhanger....? 😅
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1
> 
> Come say hi!


	7. Be Brave

“We hoped you would return.” The figure says. She struts forwards, hands clasped together, diplomat-like in her greeting, even though her figure flickers and her smile is sardonic. “Here to witness the destruction of your world. Of your friend, the universe’s orphan.”

Yaz steps forwards, standing at the top of stairs, sonic tucked in her sleeve, ready for use but hidden, for now. She needs to wait for the right time, for the Dessianimo to have gloated and in gloating have revealed their plot. She just needs a little time. She glances towards T, still and pale, and swallows down her worry.

“I know what you are, and I know what you’ve done, to her and the Doctor.” Yaz says, gesturing with her head towards T. “You’re Dessianimo.”

The figures tries to hide her surprise, but does not quite cover it, and Yaz internally smirks at that. Already tripping her up. Good start.

“I don’t know why you’ve done this, but we’re not going to let you get away with whatever you have planned.” Yaz says.

The figure glances to her two companions, and all three of them burst into laughter, whooping like hyenas. T does not stir at the sound, and Yaz shoots a scared look in her direction before focussing on her captors, straightening her back and looking as angry as she feels.

“We don’t know how you seem to remember us, or why you survived our attack earlier, but it is no matter.” The Dessianimo says, shrugging. “Soon you will all be dead and we will feast!”

“S’that your plan, then?” Ryan chimes in. “Murder us?”

“Oh no, not just you three, your whole species! Your whole planet!” The Dessianimo exclaims, clapping her hands together manically. She gestures for them to step forward. “Come! Come down here! I should like to gloat before you are dead. No one else will know of this, will ever even notice they’re sudden perishing, so we might as well make the most of it, of showing the Doctor’s friends what we’re going to do to her, to her planet!”

“Why her? Why attack the Doctor if you’re after Earth?” Yaz asks as the three of them are forced to shuffle down the stairs and closer to the console, Pointy and Headmaster looming down on them threateningly should they try anything. It is a good thing, in the long term; Yaz checks the sonic is still secreted in her pocket.

“Because we needed to be stronger, feed off a greater pain. And what is worse than a Timelord’s years of life to feast on? And a runaway Timelord at that! Well, I _say_ Timelord…. Really, this is the beauty of the Doctor,” The Dessianimo says, and taps on the glass with a finger. “She’s more than even she knows, more than any really know, but there are whispers in the furthest corners of the universe, and we have been traversing for a long time to find a new planet, after ours was destroyed. So, when we heard of the Doctor, the rumours surrounding her… well, she’s perfect.” The Dessianimo stares with sick love at the Doctor in her glass prison. Yaz swallows, finding it difficult to conceptualise that the golden embers within that cage are the _Doctor._

“So much pain in a timelords years, in the Doctor’s case thousands upon thousands. All she’s seen, all she’s done… And our relations, they knew about Gallifrey, they knew about the Last Great Time War, but they did not know what we did. Not many know what we know. It is more a myth than anything else. Some believe it, some don’t, we… we believe it.” The Dessianimo says, and she beams bright like a burning star, ready to consume, a black hole in the making. “And our belief has brought us generous reward!”

“The Last Great Time War?” Ryan asks, face contorted in confusion.

“Oh, did she not tell you?” The Dessianimo asks him. She looks over at T, tutting, shaking her head, and then moves to caress the glass. “Living so long I can understand why someone might want to keep things to themselves. Reinvent themselves, as it were.”

“But the Doctor doesn’t destroy another species to do that.” Graham protests with an accusing stab of his finger through the air.

“No, it was more her own race she was interested in destroying.” Headmaster chimes in, and the three aliens laugh. Yaz shakes her head, not understand, without the time to fully take it in. what they are saying, about the weight of the Doctor’s pain… it sits heavy with memories Yaz has only just been returned, an unspoken truth they all know is there but the Doctor is content to cover it with smile and rainbows. A fam they are, but good communicators they are not, and trying to get the Doctor to open up is like trying to prise up the coffin lid of her past lives with your bare hands. The Dessianimo are trying to distract them with this, an elusion to a deeper understanding of their friend, to dissuade them, _gloat_ and bring the Doctor down in their gloating, but Yaz will not stand for it. This is not the time.

“Alright, we get it, you’re feeding off her pain, but why like this? Why create her?” Yaz asks, pointing at T, still blissfully unaware of any of what is happening.

The Dessianimo considers this question, beginning to pace the space in front of them. “We need to repopulate, set up home elsewhere with our planet lost, and oh, you humans, you really are the weakest species. So many fears, your brains practically folding in on themselves. Such a feast for us. We will take your planet! But we need the power to do that, we are not strong enough… that is where your dear Doctor comes in. For months now we have been working on her, dragging out all those memories even she does not remember, gaining from her the maximum pain we can. And now, we have done it, she is ready to be feasted upon, and we will have the power to overrun your whole planet, kill you all!”

She begins to move towards T, rounding the chair until she is staring down at her face. She raises her hand and very gently begins to stroke her fingers across T’s cheek. Yaz is repulsed by the action. “But things like that take time. months. And the Doctor’s body, her physical form, it was not needed. We had some Timelord technology hanging around, you never know what you find in the far corners of the universe, a thing called a-”

“Chameleon arch. Yes, we know.” Yaz says, and is the Dessianimo is surprised, she does not show it, fingers continuing their gentle caressing.

“And we thought, well, why not create for ourselves another source to feast upon? On tap, as it were. We didn’t want to touch you humans yet, that is why we did not touch you before, but simply wiped your memories. You’ll have experienced our little barrier out there. Clever thing, really, having those dogs and birds scaring you with your own fears. We wanted to keep you away, your species away until the right time. What is the point in tasting the bland meat when it has not been flavoured yet?” She says with a snigger, which her companions return. Her fingers trail down to T’s chin, grab it lightly. “It was a little fun for us, too, to have her as our prisoner. A plaything to poke and prod when we were tired of poking and prodding her real self all day. This was a much more fun way to play, wasn’t it? Ingraining in her a fear of the outside world, keeping her trapped in with her worries and self-hate, making sure she knew exactly how weak she was, each and every second. I am assuming you were in her room, weren’t you, _Yaz?”_

She spits her name, referencing the way T speaks it with adoration and twisting it, like they have twisted everything in this mansion. Yaz nods reluctantly. The Dessianimo smirks.

“Then you will have seen how we decorated. How we filled that room with paintings and books, fiction based on reality, then convinced her that is all she could be worth, too weak to take the reality of the outside world, the dangers it incurs. Those little notebooks she would doodle away in, all her fears, all she saw in dreams which scared her. She called you ghosts and drew your faces as if to try and capture them, but she was always terrified!”

Yaz blinks. She thinks the dreams were the ghost? The ghosts of them in her sleep, translated into a conscious fear, a convincing to herself the ghosts were real? Yaz has a suspicion they have no idea the Doctor has been able to break free at times, has been able to lure them towards this moment. That is good, a significant bonus for them.

“The telescope really was a master stroke, courtesy of yours truly. A longing for the stars she could not explain.” The Dessianimo says, and she lets go of T’s jaw, patting her cheek. She straightens, and gestures to herself. “And the name I chose, hilariously poetic. You wouldn’t understand, of course. Neither would she...” She waves a hand in the air dismissively before it curls into a fist, her face darkening as her eyes brighten with manic glee. “It was good sustenance for us whilst we worked on the Doctor. And now, the time has come!”

She nods to Pointy, and the woman steps forwards, leaning over the console and pressing and turning buttons, twisting levers until the thing is pulsing with its small nodules of light. Around the Doctor’s glass cage, the ever-present ringing becomes louder, all the energy focussed on that one part. Like charging up a weapon. _Or cooking a meal_ , Yaz thinks as a passing thought, head reeling with all of this.

“Soon we shall have the Doctor, have her pain! But first…”

She puts her fingers to T’s temple, and Yaz steps forward. Headmaster instantly blocks her with a menacing glare. Oh, if she does harm T that certainly will not be enough to stop Yaz!

“…We need just that little boost more so we’re strong enough to take the Doctor’s pain, the pure, unfiltered pain. Time for T to say goodbye!”

Her fingers press down deeper, and with a shuddering gasp T wakes, eyes fluttering open, wide with fear. “Wh- what?”

“Oh, dear darling, you’ve been sleeping too long.” The Dessianimo says, voice sickly sweet, poisoned saccharine. “But that’s alright, you’ll be resting again soon enough. For much longer this time.”

“What? I don’t-” T says, looking around the room blearily, taking it all in, her chest heaving as her eyes move from her minders to Ryan to Graham and then her eyes alight on Yaz, and her mouth gapes open. “Yaz!”

“It’s okay, T.” Yaz calls to her. Seeing those eyes, T’s eyes, it is like a life preserve to Yaz in rocky waters. They are so out of place in this dark laboratory, compared to her light and soft rooms, but they are there, and they are so obviously T…. Yaz ignores the part of her brain which tells her T is just the Doctor, a shadow of her, a _construction,_ that voice too painful to hear when she needs just this little bit of light in this dark place.

“You’re okay!” T cries, voice cracking, eyes watering.

The Dessianimo tuts, cutting across them with scorn. “Your Yaz never came to see you, dear! She came to see who she wanted you to be- the Doctor!”

T’s brow crinkles in confusion. “What? I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t, you never do.” The Dessianimo says. “Too stupid for that, silly girl.”

She grabs T’s chin, forcing her to turn to look to her right, to where the Doctor’s glowing entity moves within the glass cage. “Look at that, T, that’s all you’ll never be. All your Yaz ever wanted.”

“I d- I don’t-” T attempts to say, but the grip on her jaw is tight.

“The _Doctor_ could offer Yaz adventure, travels through the stars. Was brave enough to take her by the hand and show her what the universe has to offer. But you? you can’t offer her anything! You’re too weak.”

“Stop, please, I don’t understand!” T says as the Dessianimo lets go of her jaw. She looks to Yaz with desperate eyes. “Yaz, what-?”

“Don’t listen to her, T! She’s lying to you, she’s been lying to you this whole time!” Yaz calls back and the Dessianimo snarls.

“Enough! We are wasting time!” She turns back to T, giving her a simpering look, her hand curling on her shoulder, digging in past the fabric of her dressing gown. “We’ve come to the conclusion we cannot help you. Cannot keep you safe. You’re too weak, even for your little plush prison. You betrayed our trust by thinking anyone else could love you but us! And now…. Well I’m terribly sorry, dear, but we’re going to have to kill you!”

“No! No, please!” T cries as the Dessianimo reaches past the chair for something on the other side of the console. T turns to Yaz. “Yaz! Please! I don’t want to die!”

“It’s alright, T, it’s going to be okay!” Yaz calls to her, making a run for it. Headmaster captures her, and despite Yaz’s fighting, he keeps a firm grip, as unnaturally strong as they had been earlier, when they had taken her to kill her. She still feels reassured she can fight, the sonic in her sleeve is still in reach, but she is desperate to get to T for another reasons, desperately wanting to rescue her and reassure her, even though Yaz knows _none_ of this is okay.

“Hush, dear, it will be over soon.” The Dessianimo says as she straightens. She places something on T’s head, then, a contraption made of the same metal surrounding the Doctor’s cage, bent in buttress shape like that, too. It rests against her forehead, her temples, and T trembles. “This little machine, it will help us increase the amount of pain we drain from you. A little different from our usual sessions. And then, once we’re done with you, it’ll be the Doctor’s turn.” She flicks a finger on the metal buttress against the glass, turning to Yaz with a smile. “Special metal, you see. Enhances our psychic abilities. Very sensitive stuff, perfect for us to refine what we feed on.”

“No, ma’am, please, please don’t kill me!” T says, and the Dessianimo groans, rounding on her and bending very close to her face, their noses touching. All pretence of motherly concern is gone, she is wretched in the face of T’s pain, bathing in it.

“You never even existed, T. We made you from the broken pieces of someone far more interesting. Your pain has just been supplementary for us, the starter before the main course.” She hisses. “You’re the _Doctor._ So much more extraordinary, with so much more pain than _you._ You’re so weak even your pain is pathetic!”

“It’s not true, it’s not, I’m not this other person!” T cries, desperately trying to turn her head, but the contraption must be heavy, weighing her down.

The Dessianimo shrugs and moves out of her way so that Yaz is in her line of sight. “Ask your precious Yaz, then, if you don’t believe me.”

“Yaz…?” T’s voice is so tentative, that hope that glimmered through before like gold in quartz, the sun rippling on the water, shining through now as she stars at Yaz with wide pleading eyes. _Help me understand,_ they say, _tell me this isn’t true._ Yaz closes her own eyes momentarily, finding it physically painful to see that hope here, in this wretched place, to know there is nothing she can do to help T, that she cannot lie to her. She promised this woman she would always be there for her, and yet here she is, unable to help her, to soothe her pain, because the supplication would be, in the long term, even more painful. If T were to die, then maybe Yaz might find it in herself so lie to her, but she does not plan on allowing this woman to be killed- not by these aliens, anyway.

Blinking her eyes open, Yaz looks towards T, meets her eye, and slowly, regrettably, tears in her eyes, she nods.

T is near hyperventilating, eyes wide and shocked and altogether taken aback. She shakes her head back at Yaz, a plead, but Yaz cannot return it, and she looks away, a sob in her throat.

“Good, now we’ve gotten that sorted.” The Dessianimo says sarcastically, moving towards the console again, her two companions following, Headmaster shoving Yaz backwards. Ryan catches her, and he sends her a reassuring nod. The three aliens turn back holding onto small metal devices, the same metal as the rest. “We can get on with the show!”

They begin to flicker more fiercely, then, and Yaz realises they must be shedding this mirage of humanity in favour of their natural look. She squints, covering her eyes as the flickering becomes intense, and then there is a flash of light, and Yaz blinks away the imprint on her retinas, coming face to face with the creatures.

She has seen them before, at the sight of them now the memory returning, just before they had been captured and their minds wiped, but seeing them afresh still sends horror down Yaz’s spine. They are humanoid in form, only standing a foot taller than they had before, but their eyes are horrific slits, serpentine yellow pupils blinking at her. Their bodies are scaled, shades of green, from lime to emerald, and their backs… well, Yaz does not know whether it is their skeleton or spikes which run down them. but jagged talon-like daggers of a deeper blue trail down to their sacrum. They bare their teeth, sharp talons matching those on the back, and Yaz’s lip curls.

“Oh stars!” T exclaims, deathly pale.

The Dessianimos look between each other, and they all nod, attaching those small metal devices to the end of one scaly taloned claw, in replacement of their hand. The leader, the one who had been the devoting mother figure to T, Tecteun, a name Yaz does not understand, steps forwards, and there is something familiar in the gleaming of their eye, despite their looking completely different. Inhuman, indeed.

“Say farewell to your Yaz, T!” She says, voice the same but laced with a sour note, a bitter tone. She looks back to Yaz, and tips her head to the side. “As much as I’d love for you to watch little T here have the life sucked out of her, there’s too much of a risk of you interfering. So you three can have the privilege of being first.”

Then suddenly, that ringing sound which has been concentrated on the Doctor in her glass cage is suddenly filling Yaz’s ears and she is falling to the ground, hands clutched over them. She hears the boys fall, too, both groaning, and she realises, then, that they are having their pain sucked out of them. No! This can’t- she needs to help T! Oh, stars!

And then, as soon as it had started, the ringing in Yaz’s ears stops, and she is left only with an aftershock of a note running through her, shaking her limbs, pounding in her head. She lies on the floor for a second, trying to take stock of why she is suddenly not being drained to death, when she understands-

She has been to this Mansion more times than she can count, the dogs and birds had stopped coming for her, only re-returning when the boys had accompanied her. They had tried to kill her before, but it had not worked. She has become immune to their power, somehow, impossibly. Inextricably.

Yaz does not dwell on that, not now, and instead uses it to her advantage. With a quick glance up, she notices the aliens have not realised she is no longer affected. Not wanting to let on, she keeps groaning in pain, hands over her ears.

“Look how powerful we already are, only linked into the circuits!” Headmaster exclaims. “We aren’t even touching them!”

“Yaz!” Yaz hears T scream, and she raises her head, looking the other woman’s way. T’s wide eyes on her, the leader moving about behind her fiddling with the console as her companions work on Graham and Ryan and, as far as they understand, Yaz. Yaz raises her head a little further, begging T to catch her eye, and at that moment their eyes _lock._

Yaz sees something different in T, through the fear and the grief, and then the tentative joy which spread across her face at the sight of Yaz, staring at her with clarity. Something almost like… peace, as if something in her finally understands, in having been told and shown she is not who she thinks, her whole world has not been what she thought it was… Yaz wonders if she had had that feeling in her core, as well, how much of the Doctor lingers in her, and how much was shaped by the creatures. She glances from Yaz to the console and the cage containing who she should be; if only Yaz could show her she is already all the amazing things the Doctor is, to her. Yaz loves her, and not just because she is born of the woman with starlight in her eyes that captured Yaz from their very first meeting, but because she is T. She is her own person, despite the odds, despite being a shadow, and as she looks at Yaz with bittersweet gentleness in her eyes, Yaz begins to realise with dawning horror that T is about to prove her right on that front.

Her hand begins to creep into her pocket, sustaining eye contact with Yaz, not daring to look from her for a single second, and Yaz mouths, ‘what are you doing?’

T smiles, a wobbling tentative thing, but once she has conjured it, it stays, strong and steady. Confident. She mouths back to Yaz, ‘being brave.’ She glances between Yaz and the console once more, and Yaz begins to understand.

‘No!’ She mouths, shaking her head in silent desperation, begging T not to do it. If Yaz could reach for her sonic right now, she would, but she is caught in a charade, frozen in her shock as she realises what T is about to do. T looks to her, her smile becoming peaceful, finding contentment as she realises that she can save them all, and her eyes glisten as they did on their first meeting, full of starlight, even though they are deep in the ground. She mouths, ‘I love you.’

‘I love you!’ Yaz mouths back, word caught on a sob, making one last abortive attempt to convince her not to do this with a small shake of her head, but T nods, a sick reversal of their interaction when Yaz had confirmed to her she is born of someone else, in herself nothing, a construct, even while at the same time Yaz sees her as the most alive human being she has met. _Maybe she was just too perfect for the real world_ , she thinks bitterly. She sends one more smile Yaz’s way, before she turns to the leader.

“Please don’t kill me!” She begs the other woman, lacing her voice with upset. “I’m not- I promise I can be better, I can be….”

“Oh, stop!” The leader spits. “All you’ll ever be is weak.”

She moves then, to turn a switch on the console, send T towards her doom, but the woman grabs her wrist in her hand.

“No, I won’t.” She says, voice calmer, more even, filled with a determination that has Yaz beaming in pride, too caught up in watching T to pretend at her charade. “Because I can be better. I am _so much more_ than you’ll ever know!”

And at that moment, with her free hand, she pulls something at and points the bright glare of it directly in the leader’s face. Yaz’s torch.

The leader cries out, disorientated, and T lets her go, reaching up and yanking the metal contraption off her head. She continues to shine the bright light in the leader’s face as she reaches towards the console with her other hand, and presses it directly on the metal over the glass cage.

Yaz could not say how long it all happens for, then, T’s face a rictus of pain as she screams against the pain that must course through her as she connects herself to the machinery. The torch drops from her grip, but it does not matter, for the moment she had touched that metal all three aliens had cried out, releasing Ryan and Graham from their feasting, and clutched at their own heads, sinking to the floor. Yaz watches as the glass cage begins to crack, the Doctor’s entity within it shaking and fizzing, as if about to burst out. The machine is overloading.

It just needs one more push.

“Yaz! The sonic!” Ryan shouts, and Yaz grabs for the sonic, safe in her sleeve, and with a steadier hand than she feels she ought to have, she directs it at the console, and presses down.

Glass shatters, and Ryan darts forward, opening up the fob watch and quickly directing the glowing gold spirit of the Doctor into it, snapping it shut tight afterwards. The moment she vacates, T drops to the ground, limp and unresponsive, her final sacrifice given.

Or so Yaz thinks.

The aliens still scream in pain, and Yaz knows that they do not have very long at all, but she needs to check, to make sure they should not open that fob watch immediately if T is gone and the Doctor’s body quickly needs it owner back before it perishes, too. She scrambles upwards, stuffing the sonic in her pocket, not caring for the glass that crunches under her feet, the loud ringing of the machine as it goes into overdrive, and kneels down next to T, grabbing for her wrist.

There, slow and faint, a pulse.

“She’s alive!” She shouts at the boys, who stand wide- eyed, shaking as they know they need to leave _now,_ and Yaz shakes herself, resigning herself to what she must do.

Really, it is no burden at all. It is a privilege.

She puts her hands under T’s knees and her back, and securing in her arms, she slowly rises from the ground, grunting slightly as she takes the other woman’s weight.

“Go!” She shouts at the boys.

They spare no second glance back at the aliens as they charge up the stairs and into the ante-chamber, then up perilously steep stairs and into the Mansion’s kitchen. The whole house seems to be flickering around them, and Yaz realises in that moment, a little deliriously, that _of course, it’s their ship!_

The whole thing is about the implode.

T is sleight, but her weight is still considerable, and Yaz’s arms are burning as they run through into the main hallway, Ryan grabbing for the doors to fling them open, even as they suddenly stutter out of existence just after they are opened. They keep running, running and running until they are close to the gate, and only then do they stop and turn back to witness the destruction they have caused.

The Mansion is pulsating as it flickers and dies, and in its wake, a large ship, sharp edges and dark metal, gleaming menacingly takes its place. Yaz spares a moment for T’s notebooks, her telescope, her room, where they shared many memories in a mirage, and then suddenly the whole ship explodes.

Yaz winces and turns her head from the bright light which sparks, a hundred fireworks going off at the same time as she ships explodes, fire pluming, smoke drifting, and then-

It blinks out of reality.

Gone.

As if it had never been there.

As if the Mansion was never there.

Behind them, rusted iron gates collapse in on themselves, stone walls crumbling until they are stumps, nature crawling over them, consuming them, barely visible. Old and forgotten.

“Blimey!” Graham exclaims, hand on head, looking haggard. Ryan stands next to him, eyes wide, looking battered and a little dazed by the events of the evening. The fob watch is clutched tightly in his hand.

“We did it.” He says, and then repeats himself a little breathlessly, relief running through him. “We actually did it.”

Yes. They did it.

Or rather, T did.

“T!” Yaz says, the weight of the other woman’s body becoming too much, sinking to the ground with the other woman in her arms, protecting her from the cold damp ground. She supports her head on her shoulder, grabbing at her wrist to feel her pulse, still weak and thready under Yaz’s fingers. “T!”

The boys stand above them, trying to give Yaz some privacy as they all collect themselves, not understanding like she does the importance of this woman in her arms, this woman as herself and _only_ herself- not a shadow, not a construction, but the woman who just saved humanity, and might have sacrificed herself in the process.

Yaz sniffs, feeling tears come to her eyes as the events of this evening hit her, as she feels the heavy presence of the woman in her arms. T’s groans a little, and then Yaz gasps, a wobbling smile on her face as her eyes blink open, looking around blearily. They come to rest on Yaz, and she smiles. “Yaz…”

“You did it, T, you were so brave!” Yaz says, tears catching in her eyes and her throat.

“Hmm.” The woman replies, eyes heady-lidded, barely there. She blinks, registering the gentle wind blowing at them, a gentle caress, nothing like the heavy handedness the Doctor had undertaken in her haunting, desperately trying to get their attention. “M’outside.”

“Yes, you are.” Yaz replies, smiling widely at her. So proud, so sad. “You did it. You saved this planet, T.”

“Yaz, I don’t feel very well….” T murmurs, and Yaz sobs, desperately trying to hold it together for her.

“It’s okay, it’s all going to be fine.” She reassures her. She can feel Ryan and Graham’s eyes on her, regretful, sorrowful.

“My head hurts.” T complains, face scrunching up, and Yaz ducks her head and places a kiss to her temple, rocking them both gently.

“It’s all going to be fine.” Yaz reassures her, knowing it will not be. Her own head is a mess, knowing what must come, what must follow T, confused as to where her feelings will sit once this is all over, whether they will remain, or if her love is for this woman and this woman only. It had its roots in that feeling in her core, her feelings for the Doctor, Yaz now knows, ones she had always hidden, the other woman too blind, seemingly, to them, too distracted, but now Yaz thinks they have grown beyond that into a love for T and all she is, rather than all she is not. Will they continue to burn beyond her now, the fire catching for the person she was, will be, soon? Yaz does not know, does not want to dwell on it, even as she is forced to in this terrible time, forced to confront the fact that the mysteries of the woman in the Mansion have been solved, the story is nearly at its end.

“What they said to you, T… it’s not true.” Yaz tells her with desperation, desperate for this woman how much she is loved for being herself. “I didn’t know, not until earlier this night, I had no idea of any of this. It was you I came to see! You and only you!”

“I believe you, Yaz…” T says, looking more content and less upset than Yaz, overcome, perhaps, with a peace in knowing there is nothing to be done to change what will happen. Better to give up your ghosts. “I will always believe you.”

This woman, so trusting, so loving of Yaz. A sudden idea comes to Yaz, and she knows it will be worth it, the burning in her arm muscles, and she runs a hand through T’s hair, smoothing it back from her brow. “Hey, I want to show you something. Can I do that?”

T frowns slightly, but she nods, trusting, safe in Yaz’s arm. She has shown bravery this night. Facing the outside in Yaz’s arm will be nothing compared to fighting against those who had trapped her in the first place. She _is_ bravery.

“Graham, can you drive us?” Yaz asks the older man, fumbling for a moment in her pocket for her car keys. She glances quickly behind them, at the Tardis, reassured that it will be safe here for a bit. They are not going far.

“Yaz?” Ryan asks, sounding uncertain. “Shouldn’t we…” He asks, gesturing to the fob watch in his hand.

Yaz looks at him with determination, even as tears glitter in the corner of her eyes. “There’s one thing I need to do first.”

 _A final goodbye._

* * *

The drive is a short one, the Mansion, isolated and alone, sitting near the hills and valleys outside of Sheffield, means they are able to reach them in record time. The car thrums under Yaz’s body as she holds T to her, the other woman drifting in and out of consciousness, slipping away. Yaz runs her hand through her hair with trembling fingers.

They pull up in a deserted car park in near pitch-black, the light of the moon the only light allowed for them. Yaz’s torch is lost somewhere in an exploded alien ship. She shuffles out the car, careful not to bash any of T’s limbs, and lifts the woman into her arms as she heads off across the car park and towards the viewpoint they have come to.

Yaz has visited this one many times with her family, for it affords the most spectacular views of Sheffield, and it does not disappoint as they reach the crest of the hill, the city coming into view. Yaz’s breaths are heaving in and out of her with T heavy in her arms, but her physical pain is nothing compared to her mental pain; she barely feels it. Ryan’s torch on his phone, which had guided their way a little shakily across the terrain, blinks out as he stuffs it in his pocket and allows the light of the moon and the lights of the city to take centre stage, both beautiful in their own way.

“T.” Yaz says, voice a rough whisper, shaking the other woman a little. “Look.”

T’s head raises from Yaz’s shoulder, eyes blinking open as she peers out across the city. It is unlike anything she has ever seen before, Yaz is sure, and her eyes widen, a small gasp leaving her as she peers across at the metropolis’ many blinking and winking lights, warm and bright, blues, greens, reds… seemingly never-ending.

“It’s beautiful.” She says, voice so weak, her life leaving her with every minute that passes. They have not long now, Yaz knows, but she has given her this, at least. A peek at the outside world, finally, away from them, in the dark, not in reach, all that could have been for Yaz and T… but will not be, but that Yaz will treasure in her heart. “Yaz… put me down.”

Yaz frowns. “T, I don’t think-”

“I can, just for a moment… I just want to put my feet on the ground.” T says, and oh, how can Yaz say no to that?

She helps the woman down, carefully guiding her until her bare feet hit the ground. She gasps. “It’s cold!”

Yaz cannot help but laugh, and Graham and Ryan both carry sad smiles, the exclamation innocent and heart-breaking. T keeps her arm wrapped around Yaz’s shoulders as she gets herself used to the temperature of the wet ground, and once she is comfortable, she unwraps herself from the woman and takes her first step outside. On her own. Braver than anyone Yaz has ever seen.

The other woman stands with her arms outstretched, bathing in moonlight, her dressing gown flapping in the wind. She is the most beautiful creature Yaz has ever seen. As ethereal in moonlight as in starlight, as in the light of the fire that had crackled warmly those evenings they had spent together, will go on crackling in Yaz’s heart.

“I’m alive.” T whispers, the wind in her hair, eyes on the city, and then sweeping upwards, gasping as she takes in the stars, spread out above them, clearer here, out of the pollution of the city. It is with these stars in her eyes that she collapses to the ground.

Yaz darts forwards before she can hit it, sinking down on her knees with T in her lap once more. The other woman is paler than Yaz has ever seen someone, and Yaz sobs, knowing the time has come. This is it. The end of their story.

T blinks with heavy lids up at Yaz, as Yaz presses a kiss to her forehead, nestling her own against it afterwards so that their noses are touching. A tear slips from Yaz’s eye onto T’s cheek.

“Yaz, you’ve given me the greatest gift I could ask for.” T murmurs, looking into Yaz’s eyes, starlight reflected in her own.

“I know.” Yaz replies. “S’not all that bad, is it? The outside.”

“Not that.” T shakes her head. A tear slips from her eye, but she looks happy, at peace. “You’ve given me your love.”

“How could I not?” Yaz asks her on a sob. T’s hand comes up to trace Yaz’s cheek, wipe away a tear.

“I’ve known true happiness. Known what it is like to be loved.” T murmurs. “And what is it to live, without being loved?”

“Please don’t go.” Yaz begs her, helplessly. T raises a hand in the air, past Yaz, opening her palm upwards. Yaz barely takes in Ryan moving forward, gently placing the fob watch in the other woman’s palm. T takes it, thumb on the opener. Yaz sobs, “I love you.”

“Don’t be afraid, Yaz.” T reassures her. “I’m not afraid anymore. Not of anything. Not with your love, carrying me wherever I go next.”

She leans forward, then, with the last of her strength, pressing her lips to Yaz’s, a kiss which only lasts mere second but which spans the universe, traversing the constellations, making their love known in them, making it set in the stars. It is the realest thing of all, and Yaz presses deeper into the kiss with that knowledge.

They break apart, and T’s eyes meet hers, for the final time, grateful, full, _alive,_ and she whispers, “And that’s a promise.”

And then her thumb presses down, and the fob watch opens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope I tied up all the loose ends and the plot lines together okay! I am sad! 
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1 
> 
> Come say hi!


	8. Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to say in the last chapter I based the aliens off the Vampires of Venice creatures, which is who they refer to when they talk of their relatives knowing about the Time War 😊
> 
> Here we are, the final chapter! I hope you enjoy!

The Tardis is a warm comfort around Yaz as she sits on the steps in the console room, insides cold.

The Doctor is in the depths of the Tardis, somewhere, getting dressed into some clean clothes.

Yaz does not know where T is. Whether she is gone, well and truly gone, or if she still resides somewhere in the body she used to inhabit, the body she was created from.

The Tardis’ front doors open, and Ryan steps in, hands tucked in his pockets, head bowed. When he spots Yaz sitting on the steps, he sends her a sad smile. “Hey, Yaz.”

Yaz returns his greeting with her own “hey,” voice rough and hoarse. The legs of her jeans are still slightly damp from where she had kneeled on the grass, T in her arms. Ryan sits down next to her, their knees brushing together as he clasps his hands together and leans his elbows on his knees. He is thinking of the words he wants to say, Yaz can tell.

“Yaz, I’m sorry.” He says.

Yaz turns to him. “What for?”

Ryan shrugs. “Well, for not trusting her, first of all. If I’d have known she weren’t just some bait luring you into a trap I wouldn’t have…”

“I get it,” Yaz says, shrugging herself. “It was all very mysterious. She had the notebook with our drawings in it, ‘course you were going to be a bit suspicious.”

“I know, still, I feel bad about it, after everything.” Ryan says.

“You weren’t to know.” Yaz says hollowly, feeling carved out from the insides. _You weren’t to know._

“How you feeling?” Ryan asks her after a short silence between, the sounds of the Tardis around them accompanying them.

Yaz lets out a long, ragged sigh, letting her shoulder droop. She glances towards Ryan, eyes wet and tired. “Head’s reeling.”

Ryan pulls a sympathetic face. “No doubt.”

He puts his hand on Yaz’s back a comforting gesture, and to Yaz it means the world.

“They have no clue out there that there was any mansion at all!” Graham says as he comes into the console room, door creaking shut behind him. “Absolutely none.”

“Must have been wiped from people’s memories, or something, seeing as it never properly existed.” Yaz ventures with a shrug.

Graham nods, and lets out a long sigh, running a hand through his hair, slicking it back neatly. He has changed, Yaz can see, as has Ryan; the Doctor had re-parked the Tardis outside Yaz’s block of flats, when she had returned. “What a night. What a…. few months, I ‘spose.”

“Yeah, mad, ain’t it?” Ryan agrees with his grandad. He looks behind him to make sure the Doctor is not there, lurking. “Had no idea any of that stuff they were saying ‘bout her.”

“From the sounds of it, neither does she, for some of it.” Graham says. “She told us she’s thousands of years old, but maybe it’s more…”

“You believe what they said?” Yaz asks them petulantly. “After what they did to T- to the Doctor.” She catches herself, biting her tongue afterwards.

“Alright, perhaps they were twisting it a bit and we should be careful, but you have to admit, Yaz, the secrecy the Doc wraps herself in… well, they were talking about a war! It’s no wonder…” Graham says, not unkindly, and Yaz feels guilt squirm in her insides. They are all still reeling, a thousand questions running through their heads; just because she has the added wonder of T does not mean the boys are putting her down for that wonder. They just wouldn’t understand. Could not hope to.

“She’s more complicated than I think we thought at first.” Ryan says. “Because before I thought she were just the same as us, only…. A bit more eccentric. Alien, like.”

“Yeah, the eating strange things was a big pointer.” Graham remarks with a fond smile.

Ryan shoots a look in Yaz’s direction, not intended for her to see, but she does, and tenses. “And with… whoever, whatever that version of herself was… T.”

Graham looks at Yaz cautiously, concerned as he asks the next question, trying not to put too much weight on his words, trying to tell her she does not have to answer. “What do you think, Yaz? T… was she the Doctor, or… someone else entirely?”

Yaz sighs, shaking her head. She is conflicted, wishing that T were both the Doctor and not. She cannot think straight, it has only been an hour since she was holding that woman, dying in her arms, and her heart still bleeds even as T takes up residence in there forever more. “… I don’t know.” She finally answers, and both men, understanding and sympathetic, leave it at that.

Footsteps echo down the hallway just off the console room, and Yaz tenses, knowing who is coming. She does not turn as the Doctor enters the console room, keeping her gaze to the ground. All she feels is torn.

“Hey, Doc!” Graham greets the Doctor as she pads down the steps, coming to a stop at the end of them. Her boots sweep through Yaz’s vision. “Good to see you again.”

“Hiya Fam!” The Doctor greets, her voice as perky and peppy as usual. How much of it does she mean, Yaz wonders. How much is she genuinely pleased to see them, and how much of that brightness is put on just for them, to spare them the reality? In an ironic way, perhaps the Doctor is just as scared of how the outside and how it perceives her, especially them, her _fam,_ as T was. Yaz shakes herself. “How we all doing?”

Ryan and Graham nod, Yaz says nothing. Ryan looks the Doctor up and down. “You look… well, more like yourself.” 

Yaz does glance up then, and there she is, the _Doctor._ Rainbow shirt, mustard braces, too short trousers. She does not wear her coat, and her hands are tucked in her pockets as she tries at casualness. She might dress different to T, but Yaz can spot the similarities, too, the blonde hair brushing shoulders, it is uncanny. And although the Doctor carries her confidence more obviously than T ever had, helped, of course, by her bright clothing, there is an inextricable physical sameness, and it makes Yaz’s heart hurt. She glances Yaz’s way, belying her nervousness, but Yaz’s gaze is already trained on the floor once again.

“Yeah, bit more me, these clothes.” The Doctor replies to Ryan’s remark. “Not really sure I’m a dress kind of person.”

“Doc, what happened? What was that…. I get what we saw, what they were trying to do, but….” Graham sighs. “A little enlightenment please?”

The Doctor takes a pause before she answers, and then she begins to pace. “To the Dessianimo I was a gold mine, a fine six course meal, you could say. We walked into a trap, way back when this all began. A trap for me, and… well, for you, too, but not you specifically, really your race.”

“Because we’re weak and easy prey, right.” Ryan says sarcastically.

“No!” The Doctor says sharply, making all of them jump. Yaz glances up again, sees the furious expression on the Doctor’s face as she points at Ryan. “You lot are anything _but_ weak! Weak to Dessianimo, who feed on that weakness, but never weak, not properly.”

Yaz drops her gaze again, sucking the inside of her cheek. She thinks of T, of how weak she had perceived herself. Ironic, now, that the Doctor lectures them on human weakness.

“They were in their dregs, it made them more desperate, hungrier.” The Doctor says, her lip curling. “S’why they targeted me. All my…” She hesitates, sounding awkward, treading the thin line they have been dancing ever since they met her, exacerbated by the Master, as to what she reveals to them and what she keeps locked tight inside herself. “…well, I’ve lived a long time.”

Yaz glances up to look between Graham and Ryan, all three of them remembering what the Dessianimo had alluded to, what the Tardis, too, seemed to know in a melancholy way, things about herself the Doctor does not remember, inextricably, all wondering whether they should bring that up. Yaz subtly shakes her head ‘no’… she is too tired for confrontation, wants to save her energy for the one she is bound to have with the questions she more pressingly wants answered. Besides, it is the Doctor, she would probably brush them off anyway.

“They said something about a war…?” Ryan asks, and Yaz practically feels the Doctor withdraw.

“Did they?” She asks casually, voice tight. “I wasn’t aware of anything when I was in that…. Glass tube thing, only when I could get out when they’d turned their machinery off for the night could I actually consciously be aware of what I was doing.”

“How did you do that? Being like a ghost?” Yaz asks, her first words to the woman, finally lifting her head to meet her gaze. Familiar eyes stare back, hopeful at Yaz’s interest, and the hope is so forthright, explicit, that Yaz’s hands curl into fists. Whereas T had been sunlight glimmering on waves, the Doctor is the sun herself.

The Doctor shrugs, nose scrunching up. “Not really sure, if I’m honest. Another trick to add to my biology. Handy, though, got your attention.” She says, and Yaz’s mouth squirms like an eel in discontent, her gaze drops once more, and the Doctor’s face falls with it.

“There’s something I don’t understand, Doc.” Graham sighs, glances Yaz’s way, although the young woman does not see, before he asks slightly hesitantly. “Was that you, that woman?”

The Doctor pauses for a moment, her words being chosen carefully even more vital now. Yaz’s fingernails are digging into her palms, her heart is hammering. She looks up at the Doctor from under her eyelashes. Finally, the Doctor answers. “Yes. She was. A part of me, grown from me, sort of like another…. Limb. But they did a lot to shape her. That’s how a chameleon arch works. It will give me a new life, new memories of a human life. Normally the Tardis would construct that life for me, place me in reality as if I’d always been there, but the Dessianimo… it was they who tweaked that version of me, put those fears in her.”

“They said they wanted her to feed on whilst they worked on _you?_ ” Ryan asks, and the Doctor nods in conformation.

“Yes, they needed a top up whilst they worked on me, so what better than to construct a reality in which you have it on tap? They were feeding off her, off her pain, generated by them, stemmed and refined from me, sort of like their alternative to…. Veganism.” The Doctor says with a shrug, and from the silence of her three companions her face scrunches up and she reconsiders. “Alright, not my best analogy but you get the gist, right? Not the pure stuff, not the real thing, but enough to sustain them until the pure hit.”

“Okay, now it sounds like you’re talking about something else.” Ryan remarks, and the Doctor raises an eyebrow, smile tugging at her lips.

Yaz feels furious at the sight. How can she joke now, after all they have been through? After…. After T had….

“You feeling okay, then, Doc? If they were routing through memories in your head?” Graham asks her. “I can imagine that might be quite…. Uncomfortable.”

“I feel fine!” The Doctor answers far too brightly and far too quickly. “Bit of head wonk, aches a bit, but some sleep and I’ll be fine, right as rain!” At the humans’ continued silence, she adds. “I wasn’t aware of it, not consciously. I don’t remember it, even if it does hurt.”

Ryan nods and Graham hums and Yaz sighs. They are all not sure they believe her, but it is clear she will not elaborate, not now, perhaps, when all this is far behind them, and they feel braver in asking and the Doctor looks a little less like she is trying to stuck the pieces of herself back together with superglue they will finally know the pain the Dessianimo feasted on, understand it more than the wracking up of a long life span. This is not the time for that.

“Well, glad to have you back.” Graham says, giving her a tempered pat on the shoulder, which the Doctor receives with her polite close-lipped smile. She glances to Yaz, and Graham looks between the two, understanding what the Doctor wants. He gestures to Ryan, indicating for his grandson to stand and follow him from the console room. “I’m off to make a cuppa! I take it we all want one?”

Ryan nods, the Doctor’s raises a single finger in request, and Yaz calls a soft ‘yes please.’ And then the two men are gone, and the Doctor and Yaz are alone.

The Doctor skids her foot across the floor, her awkwardness radiating off her, her nerves as she waits for Yaz to say something, wandering if Yaz _will_ say something. “Yaz-” She begins to say, but Yaz cuts across her.

“Was she really you?” She asks, and looks at the Doctor once more, eyes heavy-set and serious, leaving the Doctor no wiggle room. The Doctor stares back, and she swallows, voice hoarse when she answers.

“Yes.” She says, and when Yaz does not reply, she steps forwards, hands gesticulating as she explains. “She was me. She was a part of me.”

“The Tardis, she said that T shared your characteristics, shared some of _you._ ” Yaz says, and the Doctor nods in confirmation.

“Yup.”

“Is she…” Yaz licks her lips. “Is she dead?”

The Doctor looks at her for a long while. “What do you mean by ‘dead’?”

Yaz huffs, finding her patience worn thin, her emotions swelling within her into a tidal wave. She shrugs, tone taut. “Gone. Forgotten. Only me to remember her.”

The Doctor stares again, obviously weighing up what to tell her. Suddenly Yaz is furious. At what, Yaz does not know: the Doctor perhaps, herself, the universe. “Just _tell me,_ please. Don’t hide this truth from me. I need to know. Have a right to know.”

Guilt flickers across the Doctor’s face, and she steps forward, hands clasping in front of her body, looking subdued, careful… looking a little like T. “… No, Yaz, she’s not dead. She’s in here.” She taps the side of her head. “She is me. I am her.”

“But you were separated!” Yaz says, stretching her legs out as she becomes more frustrated, hands palm up on her thighs. “You were in that chamber in the laboratory! You were haunting her, scaring her almost every night!”

“I know, Yaz, it’s a little tricky to get your head around, but all she was came from me, and…. I remember. I remember being her.”

Yaz rears back at that, shock and embarrassment followed by a hope which makes her feel sick shooting through her like lightning. She licks her lips, her voice trembling as she asks, “You remember…. Everything?”

The Doctor can understand Yaz’s wobble, and the fact of that only increases Yaz’s embarrassment, her shame, and as she nods and says “yes,” Yaz gasps and lets out a sob, covering her mouth with her hand. The Doctor moves forward to comfort her, but Yaz puts a hand out to stop her. She can’t have her that close, not yet, not when she feels exposed, red and raw and bleeding all over.

“I’m sorry,” The Doctor says, “If you wanted to keep that between the two of you… but it’s not possible, I’m afraid, it’s complicated… The way we’re are entwined together…”

Yaz shakes her head, willing her sobbing to stop, but it only increases as she realises just how stupid she feels. The Doctor remembers each and every word and act she and T had shared together, sees how deep Yaz’s affection had gone for T, and Yaz feels a fool… falling in love with someone who was only real in as much as they were created from another person, shaped by alien creatures bent on destroying her. And Yaz crumples, too, for the implications, for T being the Doctor, for Yaz’s feelings for T also being birthed from that feeling that had sat in her core, had felt right… inadvertently and without even knowing she had been pursuing something she has wanted for months and in the process lost the woman she _did_ fall in love with and most likely spooked the woman she originally was in love with and still does love… it is all just a mess of emotions in her head, and she sobs for lack of anything better to do.

“Are you cross at me?” The Doctor asks her, and Yaz raises her head, confused, face contorted in her pain.

“What?” Yaz asks.

“You just seem….” The Doctor pauses, biting her lip. “I’m sorry she had to die. I am. Truly.”

“Nothing you could have done about it, it’s just the way it is.” Yaz shrugs. She crosses her arms over her chest, allowing herself to be petulant, not caring if the Doctor thinks her childish; she is already exposed in the woman’s eyes. “Just the way the universe works, isn’t it? I think it’s _that_ I’m most angry at. The _Universe._ It gives you hopes, promises you many things, but then it rips them away from you. Looks like a symbol of hope, doesn’t it? But really it’s a symbol of loss.”

The Doctor’s cheek twitches, and Yaz can see she is debating what to say, whether to say, “… Yes.” She finally replies, voice hoarse and heavy with her thousands of years. “You’re right. It takes and takes and takes and it wears you down bit by bit, but do you know what I’ve learned, something which helps me to cope with that?”

Yaz stares at her, a little jarred by the Doctor’s sudden vulnerability. She nods.

“That you keep alive those you’ve loved and lost by honouring their memory every day, by keeping going.” The Doctor says, eyes so very old. “When you have the chance to keep going, you keep on going.”

“How can I do that, though, when I know she doesn’t just live in me, she lives in you, too?!” Yaz protests, and finally she stands, stomping down the stairs to meet the Doctor on equal ground. She stands a mere foot away from her. “When I know the truth of the matter. That she was never meant to be, that whole thing was a mirage… the mansion, that life I lived, she lived, all those hopes we had, all that life she had to live, it was just a mirage.”

“No, Yaz, no!” The Doctor protests, shaking her head. She takes a step closer, wanting to reach out to Yaz but unsure… both of herself and of how Yaz will react. “It was real to you, and it was real to me, too! I wouldn’t be here like this if it hadn’t been both yours and T’s actions, if you hadn’t made real your bravery!”

“You must be disgusted.” Yaz spits, and the Doctor’s face crumples in shock. “Knowing what I was doing with this version of you, what I thought myself valid enough to have.”

“Yaz…” The Doctor says, her voice croaking.

“I was taken in, Doctor.” Yaz says, trying to still the wobbling in her hands and in her vocal chords, crossing her arms over her chest. “But it was all just a story, wasn’t it? A fiction?”

“No, Yaz, no! Look…” The Doctor clears her throat, and takes another step closer to Yaz so that they are brushing against each other, bodies closer than they ever have been as they are, now, in this life. “When I said I remember, I mean I remember _being_ her, even if I wasn’t at the time. it’s a little wibbly wobbly, I know, but the remembrance is _experience…_ I can feel everything she felt when she was me, and that’s precisely why… because she was _me._ ”

Yaz shakes her head, mind spinning. “What….” She looks into the Doctor’s eyes, and blinks, thinking…. _Those are T’s eyes, staring back at me with raw vulnerability, exposing the person beneath, the emotions which sit within._

“She came from me, and in ways she grew me, in having her experiences… it’s not just that I shaped her, she also shaped me. I’ve learnt some things, from being her, from meeting you like that, being with you like… _that.”_ She says, her hand reaching out between them, a bridge between the gap. “I’ve learnt that… I could be more open, if I wanted to. If I could just be brave enough to be open.”

Yaz blinks, her hands flattening against her sides. “What do you mean, ‘be brave enough’?”

The Doctor licks her lips, looking unsure, so unlike her usual self… or perhaps, Yaz realises, being _more_ herself. Her eyes, when they meet Yaz’s, are as raw as Yaz feels. “I’m scared, Yaz. So scared, all the time. You were right, the universe, it does take and take and take, and sometimes the keeping going it gets hard… especially when you’ve lived as long as I have. It’s an awful long time to keep losing people.” She says with a small sad smile, and something inside Yaz softens like caramel. “I’m terrified of loosing you three, of not being able to protect you from the worst. And sometimes I worry that the worst thing out there in the universe for you is… me.”

Yaz begins to shake her head, to deny that, shock coursing through her, but the Doctor continues on, eyes taking on a faraway look.

“I’ve already hurt you here, haven’t I? I am so sorry, Yaz, _so, so_ sorry that T had to go, could not be what you could have had, that it had to be me….” She steps away from Yaz a bit then, agitated, hands running through her hair, resting at the back of her neck as she paces. “I wanted to offer you all the universe through new eyes, fresh eyes that saw no pain, saw none of the mistakes they made in the past, kept looking forwards, but it’s inevitable, it is only a matter of time before one or all of you is hurt and there is nothing I can do to stop it, I am the one to cause it.”

“Doctor…” Yaz says breathlessly.

“And so part of me wonders _why?_ Why try to keep up pretences when it is always going to end the same way?” She turns on her heel to look at Yaz, hands dropping to her sides. She looks defeated, but there is a softness in her eyes as she considers the human stood in front of her. “I keep finding myself wanting to be more open. To just… be vulnerable, embrace that fear. I’ve always ran, but I’m so tired. And that is something that being T taught me… be brave, and seek what you want, what you need, because the universe might be cruel, those who dictate your path may be cruel, but realise it is _your_ life. Not predetermined, always to be changed and challenged how you want it! Even if it is all for nought you will still have tried and in trying been brave and freed yourself! Right?”

“Right…” Yaz agrees, mouth hanging open, barely believing what she is hearing. It is as if two opposing forces within her have found the bravery to change themselves with the Doctor’s words, to come together and form into one solid picture…. The Doctor and T. T and the Doctor. They are one in the same. Two sides of the same coin, not really a coin, but more a never-ending spiral, curled and twirled within one another.

The Doctor steps closer to Yaz, pain red raw and eyes soft with autumnal dew, with starlight. “T felt something inside of herself when you very first met, an instinctive longing, digging deeper, stretching further than she ever felt.”

Yaz gasps, breath stuttering. Tears come afresh to her eyes, and she covers her mouth with her hand. The Doctor must understand what this implies, for she smiles, a small tentative creature of hope, a _real_ hope, tentative in a new beginning, of wanting to change oneself despite what the universe dictates, sun glimmering on water, gold in quartz. “You didn’t just think it was you, did you?”

“Does it make sense to you, now?” Yaz asks her. “What T felt?”

_Does it feel like mine does, a love which has grown and matured and changed as it has fought against what the universe has thrown at it._

The Doctor’s smile widens, and her hand brushes against Yaz’s, pulling it away from her mouth. “Oh, Yaz, these feelings, for so long I thought they went beyond sense.”

Yaz tentatively curls her hand into the Doctor’s. “The universe does not define us.”

“No.” The Doctor agrees, squeezing Yaz’s hand, tightening her grip as they anchor each other. She licks her lips, looking between Yaz’s own and her eyes. “We choose who we want to be. We are braver than the universe could ever know.” 

Yaz’s eyes meet hers, and before either knows it, they are nudging closer, their lips are nudging together, a song of hope, a tentative attempt at healing hearts twisted, but not broken. Beaten, but brave. The kiss is like kissing T, but it is also like kissing the Doctor, and Yaz finds no cause for alarm, for disharmony…. The names, they are synonyms of each other. They are one in the same.

When they break apart tentative small smiles and twitching fingers sit between them. The Tardis, even, seems to have gone quiet as her thief and the pretty one share a moment of stillness amongst the morass of mystery and madness that has surrounded this whole affair, within four walls of a room, within a large mansion, which has brought them to this moment; the hallowed ground of their relationship leading them here. They have beaten it at its own game, the universe bows down to their bravery.

“Yaz, we don’t have to…” The Doctor begins to say but fumbles, her usual bashfulness returning to her past her softness. “What I’m saying is, it hasn’t been long since we got back, and you thought you were saying goodbye to her forever, so, we don’t have to do anything right now, have to do any more than we have already…”

Yaz nods, shooting the Doctor a reassuring smile, mind calm and still like the ocean bathing in the sun’s beams. She squeezes the Doctor’s hand. “I might need some time, just to… recover. To let it all settle. But… it will still be there, afterwards, all of this.” She smiles, and the next words she speaks, they still carry a heartache, but they carry hope and bravery even more. Are in fact made braver by recognising the contradictions they carry. “I promise.”

The Doctor smiles. “T, she wanted to see those stars. I always have, too. Each and every one. I think we’ve still got a few more to see.”

Yaz smiles, suddenly feeling so grounded, so sure of herself and what she wants, of what she has done, of what she has experienced… it is all real, and it is all hers to take to choose how it defines her, how she grows from it. She is in control. She feels brilliant. She feels _alive._

“Oh yeah?” She asks the Doctor, watching as begins to fiddle with the console, flicking switches, settling back into a familiar pattern. So alive. She shoots Yaz a genuine smile of delight, of pure unfiltered delight. T looks back at her. So _alive._

“I will show you all of those stars, Yaz.” The Doctor says, and she pulls down the lever, sending the Tardis soaring through space. “And that’s a promise.”

**END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....There we go! Cannot believe we are already at the end of this story! I hope the ending was not disappointing- I know I didn't address some of the things about the Doctor I alluded to, but this story really wasn't about that, it was more about T.   
> Thank you so much to everyone who has read and supported this work throughout, it means the world to me! Also, if anyone has read my other story, Rising Tides, you might want to look out next week for something to do with that....(forgive me for the shameless self promo!)
> 
> Thank you, once again! 
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading- I'd love to hear what you thought! 
> 
> Tumblr: walker-lister  
> Twitter: @walkerlister1
> 
> Come say hi!


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